


Vegasbound and Down

by yekaterina



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, a story that has evolved from nasty porn to an unlikely romance, cis woman katya and trans woman trixie, it's the 1990s and everything is grimy, katya is a las vegas go go dancer, trixie is a truck driver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2018-12-25 02:44:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12026457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yekaterina/pseuds/yekaterina
Summary: The screams of the crowd don't faze the go-go girl. Trixie holds her gaze as she downs her drink, and pays for another after the woman peels off the kaftan and lets it drift down her arms into those of the security guard standing at attention below the cage, in case the worst happens. Trixie wonders darkly if it has before, given the high heels of her boots and the low mindfulness she seems to possess.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> This is written intentionally to make you feel like you need to take a bath after. And as a warning, the sex is rough. Like, really rough. I advise you to read cautiously.
> 
> Thank you to @UNHhhh, @campholmes, and @koscheibessmertny for the incredible amount of support, inspiration, and enabling. I can't thank you guys enough. I appreciate the messages I've received on my blog as well, and there's a couple of references to them to show my thanks.
> 
> Talk to me @ friendofdolly on tumblr.

Vegas has welcomed Trixie a fair share of times in the last few years. It does so in the only way it ever can, with obnoxiousness and oversaturation.

The shimmering lights are a marvel, but they give her a headache if she stares too long; the men here with hands soft and weak with white collar work, and smiles more crooked than the Devil’s give her an even worse headache — the women here make it worthwhile. They’re the kind her mother and father warned her of when she was young and dumb in the country, and thus the most reoccurring kind of woman she fools around with.

The pay isn’t bad either. Vegas trips aren’t easy money, so it’s good money — every trucker wants to go through Sin City until they’re actually doing it, and she’s been the only driver on the team who has made more than one trip. It’s a hell of a drive from anywhere, the Mojave desert is kind to no man, and the Vegas Strip is even less so. But she does it, because it’s her job, because she gets shit done.

Trixie unloaded the cargo into some warehouse she’s been to once before around an hour ago, busting her balls doing so. The guys there were of no help, and after ten minutes of them screwing around, she told them to get out of her way and let her handle it by her goddamn self. It’s a common occurrence and explains why she’s so often slumped over onto counters of not so fine establishments after a hard day’s work. At the moment, she’s taken up temporary lodgings in a diner.

She grumbles when someone shakes her bicep; she knows it’s Fame, the Reno woman who owns this diner and lives on a ranch that’s county-wide famous for her flock of chickens, back in the aforementioned Reno. Fame has served Trixie cups of coffee and concerned looks all the times Trixie’s stumbled in unannounced at ungodly hours in the morning, drunk as a skunk or just dead tired. Tonight, it’s the latter. Trixie pulls in on herself closer, adjusts her ass on the stool, and draws her tan work boots up to rest on the foot railing.

“You’re in the desert, bucko. You can take off the life vest.”

“Hush up. It’s too late for your fuckin' yammerin',” Trixie speaks slowly into her elbow and she smiles into the sleeve of her jacket that’s tight on her arms, listening to Fame scoff. Trixie’s sparse but thorough visits in town throughout the last couple of years have worn down Fame's sweet disposition into disgruntlement, at least when they're alone, and Trixie finds it hilarious. “I’m not gonna be here long.”

Fame mutters over the wet slop of her wash rag sliding over the counter; she's sweeping an outline around Trixie’s half-asleep form, her coffee mug, and her plate of half-eaten biscuits and gravy. On top of that, the tune echoing through the diner is grainy, courtesy of a jukebox on its last leg, and Trixie regrets plugging quarters in it to hear Buffalo Springfield.

“It won’t take long for you to melt.”

Trixie grunts and lifts up her head enough to squint at Fame, then she lies her head back on her arm and nuzzles her nose against the worn-in softness of her denim jacket. The vest Fame mocks is of the skiing variety, despite Trixie never stepping foot on a pair of skis in her life. She has no plans to, either. Trixie prefers watching those fine European women glide down snow white mountains on staticky sports bar TVs instead.

She doesn’t have to tell strangers of her highly detailed fantasies about those women in those bars, and she doesn’t have to follow up with telling everyone she’s a woman too. Yet she always does. The one fellow who’s always drunk and stupid enough to stumble towards her, craning his neck up to meet her eyes, tends to be carried out with two black ones. Trixie yawns.

As is the case for all the hauls she’s ever done, she’s been out on road for days; it’s a long haul from Pittsburgh to Vegas. It’s tough, she believes she’s tougher. Regardless, every night she collapses on the small bed tucked behind the cab of her rig, or onto a shitty spring mattress, courtesy of a truck stop. She’s been in so many different ones they’ve all become the same. The only variation is what city she’s in and what woman she falls into bed with if she feels up for some company.

It doesn’t matter how tired she is, as Trixie makes the woman do the work. Sometimes she falls asleep with them on her; it shouldn’t turn out the way it often does, with them getting even wetter, spilling over onto her stomach and down her thighs, but it does. Sometimes that makes them mad, which is arguably better. Trixie doesn’t mind being slapped around by a frustrated woman, and it’s the typical go-to for how they wake her up. She can’t count on her hands the number of times her eyes have blinked open slowly, to a woman moaning and scowling down at her, as they ride her still hard cock.

That stinging sensation on her scruffy cheeks — that always prompts her to flip them over in whatever bed they’re in, and give it to the woman as rough as she had been begging for all along. Trixie’s getting a little hard thinking about it, so she takes a calming breath; it’s easy to get back to being soft. She forgets about it all as quickly as she thought of it. Fame hasn’t stopped wiping with her rag, the slopping sound is growing louder and Trixie assumes it’s on purpose. She wishes Fame had a spittoon, somewhere in this diner.

Fame doesn’t, despite several past suggestions made by Trixie, so she yanks up her head and spits on the floor. It’s only fair.

“Why’d you do that?” Fame throws her hands up, looks to the heavens, before taking her rag and smacking it down on the counter. Trixie stares at her, eyes half-lidded and blank. Fame’s about as threatening as one of her chickens. “Why do you do anything? You’re gross. And you smell awful.”

“Love you too,” Trixie scratches at her teeth, at the enamel build-up by her gums, and she digs her fingernails around to pull out a bit of a biscuit nestled between her gap tooth. She flicks it where Fame was cleaning. “Puddin’, you know I gotta annoy you first before turnin' in for the night. I can’t get no sleep around here if I don’t.”

Fame eyes the counter with contempt, but Trixie can see the corner of her mouth raise in a smile, so she returns it in kind. “Where are you staying this time, Big T? They shut down your favorite haunt.”

“I heard,” Trixie sniffs, and tilts her head back to rest her neck on her puffy collar; it rubs against the stubble running down her skin. The skiing vest is plush, the collar warm against her neck like a pillow, and she could truly fall asleep. All she needs is Fame to stop finding something new to say at five-minute intervals, right when Trixie is about to nod off. She crosses her arms. “Well, what the hell was it? Rats in the kitchen?”

Fame’s face lights up and she stretches her wash rag taut in her hands. Trixie knows what’s coming, something quintessentially Vegas, and she rolls her eyes. Hoping that she’ll miss out on whatever is coming, she devotes her attention to carefully wrapping her hand around her coffee mug and scooting it closer towards her. The mug is lukewarm at best, and the black coffee sloshing around in it is even worse off. Trixie is not currently, or usually, in the proper state of mind in this diner to notice. Or care.

Fame purses her lips before they spread into a smirk. “Working girls in the parking lot.”

Trixie takes a sip of the cold coffee and takes no small amount of joy in watching Fame’s disintegrate; as long as she’s going to keep trying to pull a fast one on Trixie, she’s going to respond slowly in turn. She shrugs, and Fame turns around with a huff, busies herself with something Trixie can’t make out for dim lights and tired eyes.

“Not when I’ve been there," She laughs through her words, though her smoker's lungs don't let her get away with it; Trixie coughs and has to clear her throat.

“Your timing’s always terrible.”

Trixie pays no mind to Fame’s muttering; she takes another drink and dips two fingers into the breast pocket of her vest, pulling out a crumpled-up note. She scrawled lazily the morning before, after calling Roy’s to check in and learning of the bad news.

“I’m stayin’ at… Wild West Truck Plaza. What can you tell me about that one?”

“Wild Wild West,” Fame turns back around and throws up a peace-sign. “Two Wilds.”

“That’s wild,” Trixie pushes the note back into its place and tilts her head with mock consideration; her tone matches just as well. Fame lashes at her with her wash rag and Trixie puts up a forearm to block, chuckling. Droplets of dirty water smack against her skin, catching on her arm hairs and making her shiver.

“It’s not far from one of those clubs on the Strip,” Fame says, staring at and reaching for the mug Trixie holds precariously in her raised hand. Trixie swears under her breath and gives it over to Fame, who gratefully takes it from her and carries it to safety, puts it on top of a pile of matching mugs in the sink. “Don’t even! You wouldn’t remember, but you’ve broken dozens of these.”

“Naw, I wouldn’t," Trixie squints as hard as she thinks. "I don’t recall payin’ charges?”

Fame sets her hands on her hips and looks somewhat beside herself. “You always sweet talk me out of it.”

“Aw,” Trixie grins wide and leans her chest against the counter. “That sounds like me.”

Fame glares at her as she comes back to rest her elbows on the counter; her nose wrinkles, being closer to Trixie and her smell. She continues where she left off, with a sigh.

“The girls who work there like to hang around your new place, late at night. They’re good, like the ones who frequented Roy’s, but they come at a high price,” She casts a scrutinizing eye at Trixie and rubs her finger under her nose. “You look like you have two cents to your name. As usual.”

"Two cents my ass," Trixie starts readying herself to leave; she sets her boots down on the floor, dry mud cracks off of them, and she stretches her long legs out. She slaps her pockets to confirm she's held onto her truck keys and her wallet all day and all night. She yawns again. “What's the strip club called?”

“Nightclub, Big T. And it's called Rain Nightclub," Fame tosses the wash rag into the sink and wipes her hands on her apron. "Rain in the Desert, if you want to be formal. It might as well be a strip club, actually."

She grabs her purse from under the counter and slings it over her shoulder; she tenses up like she doesn't want to continue her train of thought, but she surrenders to it and breathes out a sigh.

"One of the go-go girls there dances topless.”

“Really?”

Fame cups an imaginary ample chest for emphasis and Trixie snorts. “She possesses large breasts and wants the world to see them, I guess.”

Trixie's delighted, newly spring-fresh, and she leans harder into the counter.

"Oh," Her voice runs deep with interest, gravelly from her chest. "She’s a people’s woman.”

Fame rolls her eyes; she's not surprised by Trixie coming to the woman's defense, and she walks around the counter to stand beside her. She's deliberate in keeping her clean white Keds a safe distance from Trixie's Timberlands, uninterested in her polluted Midas touch. Trixie can't blame her. If she was feeling especially like an ass, she'd run her hand down Fame's pristine uniform, just to see it stained by the black grease that's at present, a second skin to her arms and hands.

Fame hums in disapproval. “Many people’s woman.”

Trixie blows out air and rests her chin in her hand. “Topless..." She scrubs her palm gently, unthinkingly, over the days old scruff building up on her face as she twists around on the stool to face Fame, who makes a point of frowning at the grease smudge on her chin. "She’s a real fox, ain’t she?”

“I’d say so," Fame adjusts her purse over her shoulder, digs her hand into it and roots around for her keys. Her auburn hair, already flat from a long day, falls even flatter as if operating sympatico with her mood. Her eyes narrow, and her voice cuts drier than it has all night. “You’re going.”

Trixie drops her hand to jab a finger into the counter, fingernail tapping hard on the faux marble. “You’re fuckin’ right I am.”

Fame's eyes bug and she throws her whole body into her shock. Her keys clack loud and sharp as she waves them around, and Trixie grunts at the sound. “You fell asleep!”

“Well, I’m wide awake now.”

“You stink. You look ridiculous. You stumbled into my diner," Fame lists her offenses off on her fingers and jumps back with a shriek when Trixie sticks a leg out. It's a hardly disguised attempt to shush her, and she glares at Trixie, kicking her shin until she moves her leg out of her space. "How do you know she’ll even give you the time of day?” Fame looks over at the ticking clock on the wall and scoffs, as that time is nearing one o’clock.

Trixie grips the counter and leans back. She’s half-grinning stupidly, and rubs her other hand over her soft belly in slow circles, effectively wiping her hand somewhat clean and staining her shirt even more-so than it was before. “My womanly intuition.”

 

 

Her womanly intuition tells her she ought to listen to Fame in some regard, and she heads to the truck plaza to freshen up. Trixie shaves her face and brushes her teeth, then showers; she scrubs herself near raw to remove all the grime off of her body, and she replaces her sweat-soaked and grease-stained clothes for their clean, close relatives. Khakis are exchanged for jeans, a white undershirt with a black one, and her denim jacket by her favorite green flannel button-up.

Trixie doesn't realize, courtesy of countless late-night washings at laundromats, that she's worn this same outfit, trucker hat and boots included, three days out of every work week for the past two months. It's reasonable, her reason being what space she has in the cab of her rig is to be used wisely. Instead of packing a surplus of attire, she stows her guitar in its case, and one armful of VHS tapes for the mini TV and another armful of CDs for the player when the radio is playing bullshit.

Trixie didn't use to bring so much stuff to keep her entertained. From last summer to the winter, she had a dog named Lily; the area that a milk crate of tapes and CDs occupy once held a doggy bed, and the glovebox full of value packs of Marlboros reds, various lottery tickets, and toys, once held bags of Milk-Bones. But Lily ran off, under the not so watchful eye of a well-paid dog sitter, and Trixie returned home three weeks after the incident happened to a note alerting her of it on the front door, and the stack of twenties she had left for the sitter missing from the kitchen island.

It wasn't hard for her to deduce that Lily was lonely in the quiet house, the one Trixie bought for herself after over ten years of hard work, the one she has almost half paid off. She dragged the doggy bed out with the trash that next morning with dry eyes and a heavy heart and decided the best thing to come home to after being gone for so long is a twelve pack of Budweiser waiting for her in the fridge. She also decided to pay the man who was supposed to keep her dog safe a visit; Trixie left him with two cracked ribs and his disinterested wife with her telephone number. 

Trixie ties the button-up around her waist and leaves the skiing vest thrown over the beat-up desk chair.

She walks easily to the Strip, hands in her pockets as she brushes past drunk couples and overwhelmed beat cops, and she stuffs dollar bills into the palms of men with cardboard signs hanging around their wrinkled necks when they ask for spare change. The clubs and casinos all blend together in a strange way, each one trying to overshadow the other only to share the same brand of cheap decadence, and Trixie grows more disgusted as she passes them by.

One stands out in its attempt, the remnants of what must have been a luxurious, classy nightclub decaying into what looks like a seedy, false promise of an oasis. Trixie rubs her eyes, feeling a headache coming on from all the lights and noise. She blinks slowly to fully register the glittering letters stretched atop the building's awning, spelling out the name of the place. Trixie laughs to herself when she realizes it's the club she's been looking for.

Trixie jaywalks to get to Rain in the Desert, picking up her steady pace when a motorcycle speeds towards her. She waves casually at the young cop looking up from writing a parking ticket; he can hardly yell at her for it, his shaky voice drowned out by the sounds of people shouting all along the streets and music blasting out of every open door. She ignores the slurred come-ons of a group of women stumbling out of the club and has to nudge a smitten straggler towards the party that calls out to her from their cab.

Trixie shakes her head the same as the bouncer standing by the entrance. He throws a thumb back towards the door, no worries for her trouble, and she slips inside the club with a sigh. If the outside of Rain was grandiose in an ugly sense, the inside outdoes that by tenfold. What she sees of the main room around the corner is that the lights are dark, blaring red, and prone to flashing white-hot in time with the music.

Said music is louder than any heavy metal concert she's been to. Trixie is sure it's Billy Idol, rather than Black Sabbath, but she can't make out for the rumbling of what has to be countless stomping shoes on the floor. Another sound, what resembles the downpour of rain, adds to the cacophony as well. Trixie's almost blind and deaf before she reaches the counter to pay, and dumbly forks over a wad of cash and sticks out her hand to get stamped; she has to hope she did both actions correctly.

She shoves through the dancing crowd to reach the bar to the right of the dance floor; she knows the cage is right above her, about fifteen feet up. It shines blood red with the lighting illuminating the cage bars, and Trixie spares no serious glances towards it, nor to the women dancing within and against the bars. She wants a drink, maybe four, and she's dealing with that before she gets started on meeting the go-go girl.

Trixie orders a Budweiser and feels a hand slide up her back as she counts out her cash, and she looks over to her left to see a woman almost as tall as she is. She grins at the novelty; the woman smiles back and tilts her head towards the bartender still in front of them. Trixie gets her hint and leans in close. "You like them frilly drinks?" The woman nods, and she removes her hand to brush fading purple hair out of her eyes. Trixie orders the first fruity drink she sees on the glowing sign behind the bar and tells the bartender to send it out before her beer.

“I’m Raja,” Trixie opens her mouth to introduce herself, but Raja presses her finger against her lips. “I like you as a pretty stranger. Don’t tell me your name,” She draws her finger away and points it accusatory at Trixie. “You’re not from around here.”

Trixie hands the bartender her money and Raja her drink, and she leans her side against the bar as she waits for her own. “What gave that away?”

The two women laugh together. Raja's laughter is far more elegant than Trixie's, and she takes a sip of her drink, hums in pleasure when Trixie raises her eyebrow, asking silently if it's good. Trixie catches her biting down hard on the straw, as she eyes the faint streak of grease on Trixie's neck that she couldn't quite get to. Trixie elects to disregard that. Raja isn’t as discretionary.

“You’re that trucker,” She speaks around the straw and drags her teeth up it before letting it go. “We’ve heard about you around here. What you like to do to us dancers,” Raja steps closer and brings her hand to the front of Trixie’s pants; Trixie gets hard for her to be polite, and Raja shudders as her fingers travel down the length, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Can I see it?”

Trixie pulls her off by the wrist and pats her cheek; Raja meets her eyes after Trixie loses her hard-on. “Another time.”

Raja frowns, and she slides back against the bar. Her sipping evolves into slurping. “You came to see her.”

The defeated tone makes Trixie bite back a grin; it’s no question who they’re both thinking of, and Trixie gives her a wink. “Bet your ass I did.”

“Thought so. She’s the reason for half the crowd,” Raja’s eyes roam over the room, and Trixie follows her gaze; said crowd consists of women and men and everyone in-between and outside — the one uniting aspect being their eyes. All are on the red cage above them. Raja joins everyone in staring, smiling in the direction of one of the women in the cage. It’s a look that Trixie can’t quite understand, not jealousy, perhaps more of a kind of tolerance.

She figures the blonde Raja's beckoning with a wave is her girl. She has a red kaftan draped around her that ends at the top of her thighs, and the dark lighting doesn't give Trixie any clues as to whether her guess is correct. Raja continues. “More than half, but we can’t let her know that. She’s full enough of herself as is.”

Trixie gets her first real look at the woman when she presses against the cage bars and waves back at Raja. She likes what she sees. It's true that she dances half-naked; the red poncho-esque fabric turns out to be sheer, preserving her modesty at first glance. In coordination with her kaftan, she wears a tight red miniskirt and matching go-go boots. The other dancers in the cage wear all-white and make the woman stand out like a demon among angels.

“Thanks for the drink.”

“It ain’t no thing.”

An empty glass slides towards Trixie across the bar, and can of Budweiser bumps against it. She twists around by her waist and nods at the bartender in thanks; Raja watches her pop the can open and tilt her glass at an angle to pour herself a drink before she loses interest and looks off. Trixie presumes towards the red cage. She sniffs, waiting patiently for the liquid to settle in her glass. “She’s a looker.”

“She’s looking at you.”

Trixie takes a sip of her beer and cranes her neck. Sure enough, the woman is staring at her, licking up the cage bar she grips in her fist as she wiggles her hips side to side. She then walks backward and disappears for a moment; she reappears on the outside edge of the cage, and makes the rounds of it once, running her hands along the bars, then circles back to her original spot overlooking Trixie's place on the ground. Raja slinks away with a parting word that Trixie acknowledges with a half-assed salute.

The screams of the crowd don't faze the go-go girl. Trixie holds her gaze as she downs her drink, and pays for another after the woman peels off the kaftan and lets it drift down her arms into those of the security guard standing at attention below the cage, in case the worst happens. Trixie wonders darkly if it has before, given the high heels of her boots and the low mindfulness she seems to possess.

She holds onto the bars behind her as she slides her ass down them to sit her thighs on her calves, then brings her arms to rest crossed over her knees. The dancer smiles down at Trixie, full-teethed and bright, her mess of curly long hair running down her chest and falling between her armpits; she'd be looking downright ingenuous if her biceps didn't push in on her breasts. She stays put, watching Trixie finish her second drink, and laughs when Trixie crushes one of the cans against her forehead. Trixie can't hear her, but she knows she must sound exquisite. 

The woman slides back up and points at a decently empty area on the dance floor, and Trixie pops off the bar to head towards it. As she winds her way, Trixie looks over the heads of the people surrounding her to see the woman cupping her mouth and shouting something down to the security guard. The man disengages from the crowd and ascends the roped off stairs leading up to the cage with her kaftan cradled in his arms.

He puts it on her as she stands with extended arms and he guides her down the stairs, holding her hand and taking one step at a time in front of her, to accommodate her hindered speed. It amuses Trixie, but her laugh stops in her throat when she loses sight of the go-go girl and her escort as soon as they enter the dance floor. Trixie stands in place, letting the smaller bodies around her deflect off of her larger one, as she scans the room for what should have been the easiest person to spot.

Trixie spares another look at the blur of blonde hair whipping around in the corner of her eye and grunts. She begins the journey to reach her, big shoulders bumping against drunk dancing folk without regard. As she nears, she realizes that the security guard is gone. A young man stands in his place, gesturing sloppily with his cocktail glass as he speaks at the dancer, who looks tired until Trixie's back in her line of sight. Trixie doesn’t look twice at the man next to her; she doesn’t need to. The woman doesn’t look at him either.

“Step aside, boy.” 

If either of the women cared enough, they’d see him look up at Trixie with bugged eyes and trip over himself, spilling his drink on his white Polo shirt in his effort to run away.

The go-go girl tucks a lock of hair behind her ear; it’s charming, how the woman acts shy. Her skin looks pink, every inch of her looks pink. Trixie could chalk it up to the red lighting; she gets the feeling that it can't take all the credit.

"Thank you," Her voice is high, trying to claw its way to the top of all the sounds within the club, and she takes small steps closer. The toe of one of her boots digs and twists into the floor. "You're new!" She hops up to tap Trixie’s nose with some folded up bills; Trixie figures those are her latest tips of the night, and she decides she’ll add to them.“Who are you?”

“I’m your huckleberry," Trixie slides her hands into her pockets and stands statuesque as the woman starts to runs her hands up and down Trixie's arms, and across her chest. The bills wedged between the woman's knuckles brush over her sweaty skin, and she doesn’t bother to maintain eye contact with Trixie, who doesn't try to either. She stares at her breasts as the woman fawns over her body. "Everybody calls me Big T."

“Big T,” The dancer repeats dubiously, and she clearly laughs at it; the sound is absolutely delightful as expected. Trixie’s mouth falls into a hard line. “Is that what I should call you when we’re back at yours?”

“Yes,” Trixie says simply. The woman's laugh is cut short and she sucks in a breath. “What’s your name, sweetcheeks?”

“Katya,” Trixie pulls a hand out of her pocket and her wallet with it. She plucks out some twenties and pulls the front of Katya's kaftan up, and slides her money down Katya’s tight stomach to tuck into her skirt. She strokes her fingertips over the top of her waistband to make Katya's stomach twitch. Trixie is sure she could bounce a quarter off her abs, and she has half a mind to dig one out of her pants pocket and give it a try.

Instead, she pats her stomach twice before letting the red fabric fall back down. Trixie wraps her hands around Katya's wide hips and draws her in; her fatty chest is flush against Trixie’s hard one, and Katya grips her by the elbows. "Well," She can feel Katya’s heartbeat quicken. “You’re just the prettiest creature I have ever seen.”

Katya grips her elbows tighter and Trixie palms her ass through her skirt; Katya's bony knee raises up to push against Trixie's leg. “They’re playing Bowie," She sighs onto her shoulder. "It’s a sign.”

"You wanna dance?"

"I've been dancing all night."

“Fuck that then," She takes Katya by the hand and squeezes it when Katya laughs. Trixie leads them off of the dance floor, shoving people out of the way — holding them out of the way — so the tiny woman can get through. Katya lets go of her hand to walk ahead of her, navigates them both with shouts and jumping up to point out gaps, so they can make it to the outer edge of the room and through the side exit.

The metal door shuts heavy behind Trixie and she has to stop and get her bearings. The side alley is cool where the club was hot, blue where the club was red, and she feels like she's looking through cheap 3-D glasses. She rubs her palms over her eyes and is thankful she doesn't have to deal with this while being drunk; her hearing is dull, and the thumping of the music from inside the club makes her head pound.

She opens her eyes to see Katya spinning, her hair and kaftan twirling, and Trixie thinks her vision might be screwing with her. She's reassured that's not the case when Katya ceases her rotations after she starts to teeter; she takes a couple steps forward, then takes as many backward, and lets her back fall against the black brick wall of the neighboring club.

Katya huffs and laughs a little. "Do you have any cigarettes?"

Trixie pats her back pocket to check and shrugs. "Not on me. Got a lighter for nothin', though."

"Not for nothing," Katya smoothes out her bangs, though it's mostly a pointless action; her hair is a mess from how she tosses it around wildly when she dances, and she brings two fingers to pull locks of it away from her temple; she slides out a joint nestled behind the shell of her ear and waves it around. "Want to split?"

Trixie scoffs with a smile and moseys over to Katya; she plants her hand on the wall above her head, the roughness of the brick rivaling the roughness of her palm, and she leans down. Katya looks up at her with a sucked in bottom lip and plucks the lighter out of her grasp. Her nails click on it and they match the bright orange color of the lighter, even down to the chipping of paint. Trixie wants those nails clawing up her back.

"I sure do," Trixie tips the bill of her cap to make her giggle, and Katya sticks the joint between her long, pearly white teeth. She lights it herself, ignoring Trixie's nonverbal offer to do so. Trixie hums. "You allowed to be takin' a break right now?"

"That's a laugh! My boss could give a fuck," Katya pushes smoke out of the side of her mouth, crosses her arms tight against her chest; she can make herself look poised, in her unusual outfit and holding a joint between slender fingers. Trixie can hardly believe her. "He can't fire me. I'm like the poster child of this place. Which sounds totally weird, given..."

Katya looks over at a party bus blasting down the street and watches it with dreamy eyes until the road is relatively quiet again. Trixie clears her throat and she throws her head back over her shoulder, towards Rain. Katya gets on her tiptoes to stick the joint between her lips and Trixie speaks around it. "Your daddy know you do this?”

“My dad doesn’t even know my name,” Katya motions for her to lean down further, keeps her hands outstretched to relight it, then to drop the lighter into Trixie's palm. She plays with the chain necklace Trixie has on, rubbing the gold links between the pads of her fingers. “Are you here with a party?"

“What, a bachelorette party?” Katya stops playing with her necklace to look up at her, eyebrows high, curious for a moment. Her mouth then spreads into a grin. Trixie sighs in relief and takes a hit. She tucks the lighter back into her pocket. “Naw. I’m just drivin' through.”

“So you’re by yourself, cutie?"

"I'm here with you," She closes her hand around Katya's wrist and rubs her big thumb over her soft skin, over the veins that are far thinner than her own. "Aren't I?"

Trixie takes her time getting high, inhaling and exhaling deep into the night above them. She can hear boots alternating in stomps on the pavement and lowers her head at the sound of a whine. Katya's guilty but doesn't look it at all. She wrangles her hand free and grabs the joint from Trixie; Katya takes the last hit then reaches behind her to mash it against the brick wall, and drops it beside her boot.

She smacks her hands on Trixie's chest, cupping her pecs, then two fingers encircle each strap of Trixie's undershirt and she twists, tugs on them. Trixie plants both of her palms on the wall and bends her knees; she noses Katya's hair and licks over her earlobe, her dangling cherry earring, and Katya moans softly. Trixie pulls away and dips down to push her lips hard into Katya's.

Her lips are soft and plush, wet with lipgloss, and her tongue tastes like mint gum and whatever vodka drink she had. Trixie scrapes her teeth down it and sucks on the tip. Katya's hands slide down and around to grab what she can of her ass and she squeezes hard, harder at the groan coming out of Trixie's mouth, and Katya licks at the gap between her teeth as she pushes Trixie back by her chest to breathe. 

Trixie takes a breath as well and wipes the spit off of her chin with the back of her hand, then wipes it on her shirt. “You’re revvin' me up, girl.”

Katya sighs and wraps a leg around Trixie's side, the heel of her boot digs into the back of Trixie's knee and she rubs it up and down her leg slowly. “What are you, a truck driver?”

Trixie licks the lipgloss Katya spread over her mouth and laughs at her breathless voice. “As a matter of fact.”

Katya laughs too, then whines, “That’s so stupid," Trixie leans back in and Katya's hips jerk forward as she runs her hands over the red fabric sticking to her skin, searching for a way to take it off of her. Katya points behind her shoulder and Trixie reaches around her neck. Katya shivers as her fingers brush over her quick pulse. "You’re a big stupid truck driver.”

“The stupidest,” Trixie deadpans. She finds the small hook in the back and undoes it, pulls the garment off of Katya and throws it over her own shoulder after Katya's protest when she almost drops it to the ground. She squeezes Katya’s breasts; they're so warm, bounce in her hands, and goosebumps rise as Trixie kneads. She scratches her thumbnails over her tight nipples to make Katya squeak and she presses her hard-on against her hip. Katya gasps and Trixie smirks. “Uh-huh. Biggest, too.”

“Fuck,” Katya turns her head to rest her cheek against the wall and Trixie drops to her knees.

“Let’s have a look-see,” Trixie unzips the front of Katya’s skirt and groans; she isn’t wearing panties or a thong, or anything at all. Her pubic hair is thick and drips with how wet she is. Katya presses into the wall to keep her skirt from falling and rubs her ass back and forth as Trixie breathes hot on her. “I’ll be. Your pussy is as red as your mouth,” She runs her middle finger up and down her folds to make her shudder; Katya knocks Trixie's hat off and scratches over her scalp. “And it’s dirtier, ain’t it?”

Trixie licks her hair and pulls it into her mouth; she sucks off her wetness and tugs with her teeth, and Katya's fingernails bury in her scalp deep enough to make Trixie grunt. She lets go and sucks on her clit, tongue wide and flat on the swell of her. Katya moans and it sounds agitated, she scratches harder and harder at her stubble and it's obvious to Trixie, with her face buried in Katya's pussy, that she wants something to pull on.

She sniffs and Katya smells damn good, aroused and sweaty, and Trixie brings her nose and tongue down her folds to lick up them repeatedly, slowly lapping at her. Katya whines and drops her hands to her sides. Trixie can feel countless burning prickles on her scalp and knows she must have done a number on her skin, and that it'll likely be done wherever else Katya touches. Trixie pushes her up by the backs of her knees and sets her thighs on her broad shoulders, wraps her hands around the tops of them and pulls her legs further open.

Katya digs the heels of her boots in Trixie’s back and twists, deeper and deeper, as Trixie goes on at a leisurely pace. She bats her hands down on Trixie’s head sloppily. “Why aren’t you fucking me hard?”

Trixie licks over the groove of Katya’s hip before pulling away and she sits back on her own boots. Katya moans her dissent but quiets at Trixie's glare; she starts to rub herself in what she must deem a discreet manner. Trixie doesn't pay attention to it. “I don’t wanna hurt you,” Katya rolls her eyes and drops a foot to kick Trixie’s hat, making it crumple in on itself.

“The wall,” Trixie continues. She takes one of her hands off Katya’s thighs to slap the rough bricks. Katya’s other thigh twitches under the palm that remains on her hot skin with every slap, and Trixie pinches her so that Katya gasps again. “It’s too rough. It’ll tear up your back, honey.”

Katya swallows and draws her hand from her clit, her wet fingers shaking. “Maybe I want that.”

Trixie stares up at her long enough to get her squirming, then jerks forward to gnaw at her wide hip; her snaggletooth catches on her skin, and Katya hisses, squeezes Trixie’s ears. She shrugs off Katya's thighs and pushes off of her knees to stand. Katya whines at the separation and gets on her tiptoes, tries to shove down her back down by her shoulders, but Trixie grips her hips hard to keep her grounded. “I’m at that western themed truck plaza, right at the end of the Strip. You’ve been there before, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” It’s breathless; she has to repeat herself a couple of times, or maybe she just wants to. Katya's still squirming and rubs her legs together, her patent leather go-go boots squeaking with the friction. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, and her hair frizzes in the heat of the night. She's all blush and goosebumps; Trixie's cock twitches in her jeans and she grits her teeth.

“Go inside and get your clothes. You’re comin' back with me," Katya moans and nods. She starts to wriggle to break free from Trixie’s grip, even grabs her kaftan that's still slung over her shoulder, but Trixie squeezes her and presses her mouth against her ear. She takes delight in the whimper Katya lets out and traces her tongue over the ridges inside her ear, murmurs low into the burning skin. “You tell me what you want. I’ll hand it to you on a silver platter.”

 

 

“Why do they call you Big T?”

Trixie’s tickled pink. Katya is out of breath, naked and waiting for her on the cheap bed, hair stuck to her skin from sweating through the gentle orgasm given to her with three fingers. Trixie figures she ought to cut to the chase. She pops her pants button and drags the zipper down; the sound is loud against the backdrop of the barely running AC, the scattered voices outside the truck plaza and the dim noises stretching all the way from the Strip.

She tugs down the front of her pants, her briefs, and her cock bounces slowly up and down. Katya’s eyes tell her she wants to straddle it like a seesaw. Katya sighs into a whine. “Oh, fuck,” She lurches forward to grab her and starts pumping. Trixie grunts to stop a moan, she peels Katya's fingers off and she shoves her back to rest on her heels. Katya half-grins with her mouth open and looks Trixie up and down, then turns over. She spreads her legs wide with her knees sliding over the sheets and a fist digging into the mattress.

“You want it?” Katya strokes up the back of her thigh, her hand comes to rest on her ass and she rolls her hips; she lightly smacks her own asscheek and play-hisses. Trixie’s fingers twitch and her cock jumps. “You can have it,” She giggles, drops her hand to interlock with the other one on the bed. Katya slides them both further up to lift her ass up high; Trixie looks between the liquid dripping down her legs and her full-teethed smile. Katya wiggles her head, puckers her mouth and deepens her voice, “Big T.”

Trixie steps forward to dig her knees in the bed and her jeans drift down her thick thighs. “No, sweetheart,” She twists the hairs crawling down her stomach between her fingers as she watches Katya’s face shift from smugness to confusion. Trixie holds in a laugh. “You’re gonna do all the work yourself.”

“What?” In an instant, Katya sounds desperate, laden with want. She starts to pad on the bed to turn around, Trixie reaches a hand out to still her. She blows her bangs up and squints at Trixie. Katya’s face, already pink, turns hot red, and her voice drops into that unwavering stoniness of a pissed off woman. “You said—“

“Don’t get testy. I’ll give you some good lovin’,” Trixie squeezes her shoulder, reassuring, then she digs her nails in. “You gotta put in the effort. That’s all there is to it.”

Katya rolls her eyes, but Trixie spots another droplet rolling down her thigh, catches her toes flexing. “This is stupid, just fuck me.”

Trixie’s jaw tightens. She starts to pull up her underwear and pants, and sucks her gut in so she can button her jeans up. Katya’s eyes widen, she reaches and grabs Trixie’s wrist to stop her; her fingers linger and Trixie nods. She lets Katya pull her clothes back down, smug as hell at Katya’s annoyance, and Trixie gives her air kisses. “You’re a hard worker, aren’t you?” She holds her own waist, wrist turned out, and she strokes herself slowly with her other hand’s thumb. Trixie watches Katya’s head turn minutely to follow the movements, her mouth falling open. The tip of her tongue hangs out, and Trixie considers pinching it and pulling it out all the way. “I wanna see you work hard, baby.”

Katya whimpers and her pussy watering just at the sight of her cock has her hard like a diamond. Trixie laughs to herself, thinking about the cheap jewelry she had on at the club. Thinking about she’d like to make her a pretty necklace of pearls with her come. Katya’s so goddamn wet; if Trixie was weak-willed, she’d lie her head between Katya’s legs and let her pour like a running faucet into her mouth, have it all slide smooth down her throat. She’d gulp her all up until Katya fills her belly and drowns her with it.

Trixie’s not weak-willed. She waits while Katya’s pads her knees back and forth, staring at her cock; she’s judging the size of her and Trixie likes that. She has it on her mind to call Katya a smart cookie, but she realizes Katya’s still staring, and running her hand between her legs. “Nuh-uh,” Trixie snaps and points down at her cock. “Back it on up.”

Katya whines and shakes her head. “Your— That—“ She’s grasping for words, and Trixie’s leaking onto the sheets over it; she counts almost half a minute before Katya can say something of substance. “It will never fit.”

“Come on, don’t give me that horseshit,” Trixie crosses her arms. Katya licks her lips and she wipes the sweat off her forehead with her bicep; Trixie doesn't understand why given the sheen covering her entire body, and she taps the three fingers sticky with Katya's come on her arm. "You ain't tight by a long shot," Katya's eyes squeeze shut and she takes a steadying breath. Trixie brings a finger to her jaw, her cheek, to stroke it gently; her eyes drift open and she sighs, whines when she feels her own come on her skin, and Katya jerks back to bump her ass against her cock.

“Take me in slowly, now. I’m pretty big," Katya moans as she begins to do just that, but she doesn't try at all, and she pops herself off the tip, circles her ass to rub her folds with it. Trixie slaps her hands down on either hip to still her, and Katya croaks out a plea that’s almost indistinguishable from all the other small sounds she’s making. “All of it. Slowly,” Trixie slackens her grip and pats the side of Katya’s thigh, to keep her moving along.

“Stop patting me,” Katya’s voice has some fire to it; she turns her head around to look her in the eye, defiant. Trixie chuckles as it burns out like a weak match when Trixie rubs her tip hard and slow up the length of Katya’s thigh. Both of her thighs, muscular but so soft, tremble, and Trixie wants to see them quake, see Katya’s knees give out. It’s only a matter of time.

“Slowly,” Trixie repeats, more gentle. Katya’s taking her in by the inch and the effort shows in the sweat trickling down her back, pooling in the small of it. Her shoulders shake, her arms as well, and she’s curling up the bedding into her fists. Trixie clicks her tongue against her teeth. She's losing herself in thought; in the looseness of Katya’s pussy, the wetness around her cock. “I bet you take a lot of dick, don’t you?”

She's right and she knows it. Katya doesn't have to whimper, give a frantic nod of her head, her curls bouncing with it, and cry out a "Yes". But she does. It makes Trixie smile; Katya wants her to know, wants her to know so badly that she doesn’t stop saying it until Trixie tells her to shut up. Trixie's arms hang steady by her sides and she cracks the knuckles of her right hand one by one. Her voice lowers into a low rumble in her chest.

“Slut.”

Katya squeaks and she backs up all the way, taking her all in with a gasp that shoots high into a whine; Trixie could laugh at how vocal she is. Katya starts rocking up and off, then back down on her cock; her rhythm is a bumbling mess, so sloppy, but Katya’s trying. Trixie will allow her time to practice. “That’s right,” She rubs over the small of Katya’s back and pats her. “That’s right.”

As the minutes pass by Katya regains her senses; the rhythm almost like when she's dancing in the cage, but as they pass by even more so, she loses it all over again. Trixie knows she's falling apart. Katya moans and rolls her head around her neck, then lets her head hang and her thick curls of hair cover her face. “Big...”

Trixie takes a fistful of Katya's hair and yanks it to have her look at her. Katya's breasts bounce heavy with the sudden movement and she cries out. Her bounces against Trixie's hips stutter, and her fists tug at the sheets so they creep off the edges of the mattress a little. Trixie feels her soaking around her cock. “What’s that?”

“Big T.”

“Yeah?”

Katya whines and she clears her throat; she can't hide how ragged she sounds. “I’m going to come.”

“Naw, not yet,” Trixie releases her hair and takes hold of Katya’s asscheek to keep her riding back on her, help her out with her pacing, then she lets go. “You can hold out for—”

“Fuck me,” She yells it so rudely but hiccups afterward so cutely; she collapses face first into the bedding, ass still in the air, and it’s better than Trixie had imagined. Katya’s hand covers her red face an it stumbles up, and she clutches onto her own hair where Trixie was prior. Trixie doesn’t budge, hips stone-still, as Katya is desperately trying to hang on; her rhythm is nonexistent, and she gradually slips further off her cock.

“Thought you was ready to come…” Katya slips off of her completely and lands on the bedding with a soft thump. She turns her head and sets it back on the bed, looking pleadingly at Trixie. She’s covered in sweat and teary-eyed, chest heaving, her whole body shaking. Trixie groans and her eyes flutter; she’s only wanted to fuck someone so hard and good once before, and she can't deny how exciting the prospect of this is.

“Fuck me, Big T.”

Trixie laughs holding her belly through her undershirt. “Testy…”

She takes Katya’s hips in her hands and scoops her up, slides herself in easy, starts to give Katya what she’s been wanting and needing. Trixie watches Katya’s back muscles work; she runs her hands over them, picking up sweat beads in the whorls of her fingertips, as she pushes and pulls out of Katya real slow for a while, then picks up into a pace that is without remorse. She grins toothy and cocksure at the sound of a particularly slutty moan that rips out of Katya’s throat.

“You can really take it, huh?” Her head lulls back as she fucks into her hard and she moans unabashed for a good while; Trixie can't get enough of her. Katya whimpers, squirms, and she’s twisting the sheets up in her fists. “Yeah, you can take it alright, Kaitlyn.”

Katya moans low, lower than Trixie's heard all night, and looks over her shoulder at her; her face is pink and sweaty and her brows are scrunched together, pain and pleasure across her face in a wonderful array. “Katya,” She corrects her in a sigh without any force behind it.

“Sorry,” Her heavy balls slap rough against her clit and Trixie expects Katya’s pussy is going to be raw; Katya has to know it as well, but she isn’t saying anything, and Trixie can tell she won’t be complaining until the morning. "I forgot."

Katya steadily starts to scream and does so endlessly. She reaches her hand back to tug on Trixie’s forearm, then claws at her stomach, her hip; Trixie grunts at the sharp pains and moves quicker, harder, and it corrects Katya from scraping her nails across her again. She tries to make things difficult in new ways — writhing around, pulling the sheets until they pop all the way off the corners of the bed, and kicking her legs — Trixie sets her knees into the backs of Katya’s to get her to stop.

It’s unnecessary, but it makes Katya mutter swears so dirty that Trixie keeps the weight of her knees on her. That only calms her for a moment, and she’s back to screaming moans. Katya lifts her heaving chest to twist around, stare back open-mouthed at her as she fucks her. Trixie plants a hand on her back to shove her into the sheets again and she keeps her there; her hand moves to hold her down by her head as she goes on.

“Whoo doggy,” Trixie grits out in between breaths and her own low moans; they are lackluster compared to that of Katya’s. “You’re a wild one.”

Katya whimpers, cheek smushed into the bed. She's made the bed wet with her sweat, come, and drool, and lies in the middle of it all. Katya is breathing heavy again and it turns into a bout of hiccups before she's yelling out that she's going to come, needs to, and she begs Trixie to let her in a stream of unintelligible mumbles. Trixie responds by slowing down; she unwinds her hair from her fingers to pet it gently as Katya comes. “Atta girl.” 

Katya bundles up the sheets in her arms as Trixie keeps going; she can feel her come coating her cock and her balls and it’s maddening, bringing Trixie closer to orgasm herself. Katya's quiet for a while and Trixie is as well, watching her think. “You have,” Katya swallows. “A lot of stamina.”

“Mhm,” She drags it out like she always does; Katya moans softly and Trixie pinches her waist, then moves her hand up to grip her shoulder. Her other hand rubs over her own stomach, under-shirt riding up past her belly button and sticking to her body with all her sweat. She can feel it coming on and she slams hard into her one last time; Trixie pulls out of Katya’s pussy and comes across her back, moaning as she pumps her cock.

Katya’s thighs twitch and she raises her ass, lifts her head up off the pillow. “You could’ve come in me.”

“Well, now—“

“Do it next time.”

Trixie’s bottom lip twitches, but she bites down instead of grinning. “I’ll do my worst,” She’s coming still, pouring hot on Katya’s heaving back, and it drips onto the sheets. She jerks her chin up and stares down at Katya. “Wipe the come up your pussy, honey.”

Katya moans and reaches her arm behind her to do so. She shivers as she strokes herself with sticky fingers.

 

“Next time,” Trixie breathes out, repeating after her, and Katya nods against her pillow. Trixie squeezes her sharp nose between her knuckles and wiggles it back and forth. “I don’t know when that’ll be, girly.”

Katya swats her thick fingers away with a hint of a giggle. She blows her hair out her eyes before sighing. “I hope not too soon.”

“Need some time to recover?” She lowers her hand to stroke her folds and Katya gasps, and turns over, away from her. Trixie waits for the twitching in her shoulder blades to relax, then slides across the bed to press her chest into Katya’s back, and she drapes her arm over her; Trixie rubs her nose up and down her ear and whispers the way woman tend to tremble over. “Baby’s all plum tuckered out.”

She can feel the swallow in Katya’s neck where her hand strokes her blushing skin. “Plum tuckered?” It's Katya's turn to echo; her voice is high and disbelieving, and Trixie lets out a deep giggle. Katya scoots back against her and looks over her shoulder, up at Trixie, who gets a mouthful of her hair. It smells like the rest of her, odorous with sweat. There's a faint sweet smell too, like some sort of bubblegum soap. “You’re so weird. Where are you even from?”

“Kentucky," Trixie spits out her hair and plucks strands of it off of her tongue, flicks them seemingly out of existence. "You?”

“Definitely not Kentucky,” Katya lifts up to sit; it’s an effort, she looks uncomfortable, and she shifts to rest on her thigh. She pulls the sheets that she tugged off the mattress around her waist, then around her shoulders. Trixie follows her curls bouncing as she moves and covers herself, not looking at Trixie. “Not Nevada, either. I’m from California.”

“That so? I’ve been to California plenty,” Trixie lifts her head and pulls her pillow closer, fluffs it, before lying back down. She crosses her arms to keep herself warm; the AC decided to kick-start in the time it took for them both to calm down, and she has an inkling Katya won't share the sheets and blankets with her. “Yes ma’am, all over California. Every road, I’m sure.”

Katya smiles a little. She's swathed herself and Trixie can't help but smile as well. “Maybe you’ve driven right past me.”

“Maybe.”

“Can I stay the night?”

“Of course,” Trixie pulls at her hand to have her fall back onto her and she whispers into her warm forehead. “You was gonna do that anyway, though. Weren’t you?”

Katya doesn’t answer. She just adjusts in the bedding and burrows herself further into Trixie; Katya's breaths pick up when she wraps an arm around her again, then even out as she rubs her back slowly, relaxing the tense muscles she can feel through the sheets. Katya's falling asleep on her, heartbeat slowing, drooling onto the hairs on Trixie's chest; she isn't bothered, and starts to fall asleep easily herself, Katya's light snores masking her own.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trixie ignores her in favor of roaming the bedroom. She notes the tokens of varied religious faiths lined up on a shelf. There are two statuettes of Mary, one of Buddha, all surrounded by miniature white ceramic elephants. There's a tarot card with the image of two women and an angel tacked on the wall above the scene; she has no idea what any of it means. Trixie rubs her knuckles on her scalp but stops when she feels the healed scratches. She looks over at herself in one of the three mirrors and catches Katya staring at her. She's too big for the room, for Katya, and she wants out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some more shoutouts to my mutuals and anons in this. Thank you to everyone for the support, especially my mutuals and those who have left comments.

Trixie wakes up and knows she’s hours behind on the day’s work without blinking twice. She should be waking up to darkness, to the hum of late-night bugs and the roar of a truck coming to life and pulling out of the parking lot beneath her hotel window. None of these regular occurrences are present.

Warm, late-morning light sifts through flimsy curtains that ripple lazily under the weak force of the AC, and the loud, one by one drips of water into the bathroom sink are even and ceaseless, like the second hand on a clock. It’s as if the drips are mocking her distrust of alarms and dislike of wake-up calls. She sleeps like a log, like a knockout punch sent her down; Trixie relies on her body’s skewed circadian rhythm to have her up and out of any bed before dawn, no matter the hour she hits the sack.

She swallows and her ears pop. The regret is monumental. Everything becomes louder, and she catches the ending note of the birds’ morning song; it adds another layer to the reassurance that she’s setting herself up for a long, long drive. Trixie grunts in place of whispering a swear, and she brings her hands up to her face to soothe down from her forehead to her jaw.

Faint images come to mind at a sluggish pace, ones of her being shaken awake multiple times by a figure with terrified green eyes; they had shone too brilliantly, illuminated by the outside neon lights cutting through the dark. She isn’t sure if any of that happened, or it was all a fever dream her deep slumbering tendencies had her trapped in.

Katya isn’t on her, next to her, or in the room at all. Where her tiny body took up as much space as it could is substituted by displaced, poorly fluffed pillows. The blankets she had taken off of Trixie lay across her now, smoothed out to a certain point. The bed is cool to the touch where Trixie’s body heat doesn’t reach. On top of one of the pillows, the one closest to Trixie, is a slip of the hotel stationary torn from the notepad on the desk.

The note recounts vividly Katya’s thoughts on their night together; she dots her I's with hearts and signs her name with X’s and O’s, and a postscript tells Trixie that she stole her vest, that she’ll have to come back to get it from her. Trixie glances over her shoulder to squint at the desk chair. Sure enough, her skiing vest is missing. She sucks on her teeth and continues reading; she turns over the note, guided by the arrows at the bottom that tell her to do so. Katya wrote her phone number on the back in bold lettering; underneath the numbers, she tells Trixie to ‘Call me!’

Trixie brings the slip of paper to her nose; she smells something fruity and wonders where the hell Katya got perfume. She passes the note between her hands and sets it down on the nightstand. Her fingers graze over glossy paper, what she assumes to be a receipt, and her question is answered. She rolls over onto her back and pulls herself up in the bed, yanks on the chain dangling from the lamp above the headboard. It mixes the natural light with fluorescent and Trixie blinks as she looks down at the nightstand.

Various things that were not on top of it the night before are there now; the amount appears to grow as she continues to blink, forcing her eyes to open wider. There’s a pack of band-aids with some cartoon character she doesn’t recognize as the design. Trixie is at a loss for what those could be for and brings her knuckles to her scalp to scrub over in thought; she hisses, having provoked the stinging of fresh wounds no closer to healing than they were hours ago.

Her grimace melts into a smile that plays across her lips when a water bottle and a small bottle of aspirin reveal themselves as well. The smile grows for a moment before it falls. She’s curious as to how Katya got the money to buy everything. Out of reflex she lifts her ass and checks her back pocket for her wallet. She doesn’t find it.

Trixie huffs deeply out of her nose and closes her eyes; when she opens them she sees her wallet also on the nightstand. Her shoulders drop and she lets out the breath she was holding as a sigh. She grabs a bottle in each hand and swallows a pill, drinks down the water to lessen the effect of her morning breath. Trixie keeps some of the water in her mouth to swish it around in her cheeks.

She throws the blankets off of her legs and wiggles her toes, sees the big ones poke through holes in her socks. Trixie isn't surprised at the finding and she hoists herself up off the bed to stretch her back, her arms. She slides her briefs and pants down her legs and steps out of them, then pulls her undershirt up over her head and tosses it to drape over her Timberlands set by the bed. She doesn't remember taking them off.

Trixie walks to the bathroom and twists a stubborn metal knob to end the faucet's drips. The satisfaction of one less sound in the hotel room has her headache beginning to ease up. She releases the water that's become hot in her mouth into the bowl of the sink and she looks into the mirror; it's spotty with dry water that's been splashed onto the surface, and she tilts her head down to inspect her scalp. 

As she looks from under her eyelashes she laughs, though her laughter dies down when she looks around the sink counter. Her toothbrush is placed into the ceramic holder like it should be, and not set on the edge of the sink like she had left it. She picks it up and rubs a thumb over the bristles. They're slightly wet; Trixie brings them to her lips to rub over her flesh for a moment, before setting the toothbrush back down.

Trixie scratches her ass, feels bruises on her cheeks, and lets herself revel a little in all that Katya's left behind for her.

 

She’s back in Vegas standing at Katya's front door, the sun uncurling its warmth from her skin as it slides down the sky. Hours ago, muscle memory had her knuckling Katya's phone number into the cool, scratched-up metal of a payphone outside a Phoenix truck stop. The required time off the road for two days had her saying she's on the way, that Trixie would call her again once she's back in town.

In the lobby of Wild Wild West, she had the phone propped over the hook as she drew ink from the hotel clerk's pen across her broad, newly clean palm. Trixie could feel the old woman's eyes on her hip digging into the plaster wall as she nodded along silently to Katya's scattered directions. She left her rig behind in the truck plaza's parking lot to take a taxi cab.

Reclined in the back seat of it, after a tiring debate with the cab driver in order to make sense of what Katya had rattled off to her, Trixie had realized that was the longest phone call they'd ever shared. There had been numerous past, failed attempts at conversations over the phone; each one was designated to exist in the slim, almost nonexistent span of time that is Trixie's waking hours not spent on the road.

Within that span of time, Trixie would more often than not nod off sitting in a too-small chair in her hotel room before they could get anywhere. Their efforts were further complicated by the time differences that changed constantly, Katya's similar odd hours of work and sleep and her never seeming to be home. Trixie can't blame her, she's never home either.

It's been three months since their night together. Trixie slides her hands into her pants pockets and rolls her head in circles. It’s been minutes since she rang the doorbell; she isn’t bothered enough to check her watch to see just how many. She looks to her right at the candy apple red convertible parked in Katya's driveway and remembers Katya describing a car that fits the description on their walk to the truck plaza.

Trixie remembers how Katya insisted five minutes in that they should turn around and let her drive it, despite the decided of lack sobriety between the two of them. Katya quieted at Trixie picking her up and carrying her the rest of the way.

She turns her head back around. Trixie can lean to the side to peek through the front window and she starts to; a sheer red curtain is behind it and the image stirs up a visual she’s dreamt about on lonesome nights. Her eyes close at the thought just as the front door swings wide open with a gust of wind that blows the dust by her boots away.

“Hi!” Katya greets her with a wide smile. She’s wearing the most clothing Trixie’s seen her in; her legs are covered by a black and white pattern, reminiscent of the floor of Fame’s diner. Trixie is curious to know if she’s ever been. Her pants look so much softer than that linoleum floor and she wants them under her palms, rubbing over her corduroys. Trixie's eyes jump from square to square until she’s staring at the baby blue halter top that’s tight on Katya’s chest. Her nipples bud under the material.

Katya lunges forward to wrap her arms around her in a hug before Trixie can slip her hands out of her pockets to return it; an attempt is made, but Katya curls around her tighter. An ankle coils around the back of hers, Katya's toes on her boot. Fatty breasts are squished against her, nipples hard. Trixie ruminates on sucking on them through her shirt, right out in the open.

The neighbors could watch from their shabby yards, squinting to see better in the evening light. They could listen to how loud the woman living in the brick house gets. Then Trixie figures they probably know already, maybe even better than she does. "Hi," Katya repeats in a whisper, voice more demure.

Trixie's looking down with her chin pressed into her neck at the head of curly hair that burrows endlessly into her chest. She chuckles at Katya's hands traveling down her back to rest on her ass. “Hey, lil' lady."

Katya lifts her head off of Trixie's chest to dig her chin into it, looking straight up at her and grinning. She pulls off of her then pulls her inside, both of her hands tight around one of her thick wrists; she lets it go to turn around and grasps it again behind her. She's beginning an introductory speech regarding her house in the moment that Trixie stops on the doormat.

Katya stumbles in both wording and footing and she spins on one foot to face Trixie. Her initial surprised expression morphs into a soft questioning one, then hardens into annoyance. "What gives?"

“My boots,” Trixie drawls out after enjoying the view, and she bends over some and brings a foot up to cross over her knee. She taps the back of her boot twice then sets it back down. Katya hangs onto every movement. Trixie looks between her heavy chest beginning to rise and fall noticeably and the belly button piercing she's showing off with her cropped shirt. “Everythin's clean but these doggies. They've seen months of work.”

“Sorry," Katya wrings Trixie's wrist. "You can keep them on.”

“I’ll track mud everywhere.”

“I don’t mind,” Katya replies too fast, speaking over her, and she blushes. Trixie sucks on a grin and pops her hand out of her hold easily; she can hear the gasp Katya tries to hide behind clearing her throat. Trixie digs her shoes into the mat, then takes a knee and begins untying the laces. She’s slipping out of the first boot when Katya’s bare foot taps on the wood floor. It and its socked counterpart step closer. “Let me.”

Trixie looks up at her and keeps looking until she’s looking down at her. Katya stares hard at her Adam's apple then she squats, shifts, and drops her knees to the ground to sit on her feet. Katya’s wrists are skinny, her fingers more so, and they’re impatient, fumbling to unwind double-knotted laces. Trixie catches her in the act of stroking the side of her boot with her pinkies, sighing as she presses them hard into the leather.

She is reminded of Katya’s hands on her cock briefly, how Katya wanted to pump her like a champagne bottle, suck and drink her down like one too. Trixie’s hot at the thought but it's Katya who’s squirming at her feet, watching with widening eyes as she grows harder. She decides she’ll let Katya do what she wants; she plants a hand on top of Katya’s head and gathers up locks of blonde hair in-between her fingers. Trixie tugs on her hair and Katya loses her balance, moves her hands from Trixie's shoelaces to curl around the backs of her knees.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Trixie tugs again, hard. Katya jerks up and pulls at Trixie's knees so they buck, and she lets out a tiny scream. Trixie clicks her fingernail hard against the metal button of her pants. Katya whines with her lips sucked in closed at every click; Trixie pulls the metal out of the buttonhole and starts to drag down her fly. “How 'bout we stay like this a while?”

Katya’s eyes flutter shut and her mouth opens, waiting for her. She laughs at how easy it is, how slutty Katya is. Trixie pulls her cock out of her briefs and one of Katya’s eyes opens to peek. It undoes her even more; at the sight of Trixie her eyes shut tighter, her big mouth opens wider, and her neck cranes backward. Trixie considers keeping her as she is, for an hour or two, so she can sit back and watch Katya sweat.

She doesn’t; Trixie rubs her tip over Katya’s mouth instead, spreading her wetness over her plush lips. Katya’s tongue darts out to chase it, swipe it all up, and she rolls her tongue over Trixie’s hole. Trixie exhales deep out of her nose; she’s steady as a rock while Katya grows more restless, whining for her to put it in already.

Trixie has to push the heel of her palm into her forehead to keep Katya from taking her all in at once. Katya’s so light that it’s like pushing at air, but she’s difficult again; her knees slide against the floor like it’s wet — it’s starting to be, precome and drool dripping down — and Katya’s hands wring the backs of her knees. Trixie giggles deep when she whines out a long one. “You hungry, baby?”

“Oh my God, just,” Katya starts to claw at Trixie though her pants; the sensation reminds her of the old ache on her scalp given to her by those same painted nails. Like how their color has changed from orange to blue, the pink crescents on her skin have healed to flesh color. “I want—“

“I know you do,” Trixie traces over Katya’s jawline and finds herself gripping the base of herself harder. The shine she leaves on Katya’s tan skin makes her buck against her chin; she finally settles on Katya’s stuck-out tongue and it lowers under her weight. “You remember what I told you?”

Katya creeps forward with her knees and sucks her in gently, her lips stretched taut around her. "Slowly," She says, voice muffled by the thickness of Trixie's head and deepened by her own moan. Trixie pats her blushing cheek and picks up some sweat on her fingertips.

"Aw," She digs both of her thumbs into the back pockets of her pants and tilts her head as she smiles down at her. "You remembered."

Katya's hands move to squeeze her thick thighs hard and she tugs at Trixie's pants as she cranes forward. She takes Trixie into her mouth at a speed that has Trixie counting the drops of sweat running down Katya's nose from her bangs and the deep wrinkles that form between her eyebrows. It has Katya whining around her and her ass wiggling in a motion Trixie thinks of as hypnotic. "Mhm," Trixie purrs it, lays it on thick for Katya. "Take your time."

Katya moans around her and leans forward quick at that, she almost bumps her forehead against her stomach. Trixie grunts and draws her hips back, she pushes Katya away by her shoulder so that her cock is completely out of her mouth and bumping against her jaw. Katya makes a high sound of displeasure and bounces up on her knees; Trixie twists away from her, waits until she's sitting down on her feet to twist back.

"And you were doin' so good," Trixie sighs and gestures noncommittally down at herself. "Start over."

Katya cries out loud, frustrated. "I can't," She drops her forehead onto Trixie's leg and she runs her hand up and down it. Her nails scratch lightly over the ridges of her corduroys; Trixie hums and plays with the curls that she's tangled to all hell. Katya turns her head to rest her cheek against her thigh and swallows thickly. "I can't do it."

She has to ask Katya to look up at her twice; Katya's eyes are watering and whatever lipgloss she wore today is smeared on her face, mixed with precome and her own saliva. Trixie's fingers wipe what she can off in crude strokes; she isn't worried about missing the sight. It'll happen all over again. "Sure you can."

Katya shakes her head as it is held in Trixie's hand. Her big lips are pushed in as Trixie squeezes her cheeks. "Not like you want me to."

Trixie tilts her up by her jaw. Katya's face glows a dark pink with the evening light pouring in through her tinted foyer window; in the corner of her eye, Trixie can see a car pull into the driveway next door. She can hear it shut off through the murmur of the R&B music Katya has playing in another room. "You're gonna choke if you try'n go fast."

Katya gasps and she pinches her leg to make her grunt. In turn, Trixie nudges her thighs apart with her shoe until Katya sits on it; she does so with a shudder and she rubs herself over the toe of it; Katya's sure to wash her pants the next day, wetness and mud staining the crotch of them, but Trixie's not going to wash her boot for a long while. She breathes out deep through her nose and drags her slick cock up Katya's neck.

"That sound nice?" Trixie can feel her swallow; she rolls her eyes at Katya's nods. "I shoulda known," She sticks two fingers into Katya's mouth to make her open wide, and she eases in. Katya takes it all into her mouth and down her throat like a champ; tendrils of Trixie's pubic hair brush over her nose, making it wrinkle against her. Her bangs are soft against Trixie's skin and they stick to her with Katya's sweat.

She clamps her hands over Katya's shoulders to keep her in place, fingers pressing into bare skin. Katya's breasts are squished against her legs and her head is flush against the hairs on rise of her soft stomach. Katya grinds down on her boot and wraps her arms around the back of her legs. Trixie pushes her away by her shoulders a couple of inches before she brings her back down gently; she does this again and again. Katya rubs down harder and she squeezes Trixie's legs tighter in response; the gargled moan she tries to let out tells Trixie she's orgasmed.

Katya smacks a hand on the ground and it cuts through the loud, wet sounds of her throat being fucked. Trixie pulls out immediately. Katya’s knees are digging into the wood, bone against dark oak; they slide around as if they were polishing it with all the spit and precome. Her chin is dripping, she has to swallow and catch her breath before she can speak. When she's able to, she sounds guttural. “The floor.” 

“It hurtin’ you?” Katya nods. Trixie hoists her up by her armpits and sweat soaks her palms. She brings them to her face and inhales deeply; she savors the smell and the sound of Katya's quiet moan before drawing them away and taking ahold of the small woman, throwing her over her shoulder. Katya yelps and her fingers claw into Trixie's t-shirt, she pulls at the hem of it as Trixie looks around. Trixie rubs a hand over Katya's ass and pats it. “Where’s your bedroom?

Katya mumbles into her back then reaches an arm behind her to bump against Trixie's ear; she points towards a pink door. “There."

 

Her bedroom has three mirrors; the largest of them hangs above the headboard of the bed and Trixie stares at Katya's ass wriggling on her shoulder in it. "You like to watch yourself?"

Katya's lips move against Trixie's back and it tickles. "It's not fair that only you get to see me."

Trixie watches her own eyes flash and her hand that covers the entirety of Katya's asscheek digs into the fat of it. She drops Katya onto her bed without a shred of gallantry and drops her jeans to her ankles in the same manner. She remembers the clawing at her t-shirt and pulls it over her head and tosses it as Katya bounces up onto on her knees. Soft hands leisurely run flat over Trixie's chest down to her stomach in appreciation.

"God. You're bodacious," Katya speaks lowly as she kneads her stomach, pushing her knuckles into the muscle hidden behind her beer belly. She suddenly stops, dips down her head to lick over the hairs that lead a trail down to the thick patch of it between Trixie's legs. Trixie sighs. Katya starts to nip at her belly and she squeezes Katya's curls hard enough to wring some sweat onto her palms; she lets go and throws a finger in an arch to have Katya lie down, roll over onto her back.

“Mind scootchin' a lil’ closer?" Katya does as asked with a smile on her shiny, puffy lips and Trixie bends down to kiss her on her sticky mouth. She tastes like toothpaste and Trixie's cock and Katya squeaks around her tongue; Trixie groans into her mouth and speaks into the warmth of it. "Hang your head off the bed, so I can throat-fuck you proper.”

Katya's hair falls to the floor as Trixie straightens back up. She watches her squirm in silence until Katya fills it with little sounds; she jingles the necklace she wears in anticipation and sweet moans pour out of her mouth. Trixie stuffs it with herself; she starts all over, slowly, only to pick up the measure into that of a furious pace, pushing and pulling at her with a roughness that has Katya’s knees bent and tossing back and forth.

As Trixie thrusts into her throat her bony ankles bump together. It must hurt. “Funny, not hearin' you screamin’.”

There is a Felix the Cat clock on the wall; it ticks and ticks, minutes rolling by as Trixie rolls her hips. Katya can take it in her mouth as good as she can take it in her pussy. She opens herself up, mouth wide for Trixie now like her legs were then. She's so giving and all she wants is to be taken. Trixie can give her that and more, and she feeds Katya her wetness like the Good Samaritan feeds the starving man.

Katya gurgles and Trixie laughs, drags her thumbs down her cheeks to wipe away her tears. She pulls out of her mouth and her cock is soaking wet. Katya sucks in air in a deep gasp and tugs at the bedding to lift herself up; she crawls away from Trixie to fall lamely onto the pillows. She's whining into them, and her hand slips under her stomach and between her legs. Her ass rises a little so she can rub herself through her pants.

Trixie drags her back by a bruised ankle to have her legs hang over the bed and she flips her over. Trixie pulls her pants off of her, bunches them up and throws them behind her, past her hip. Katya's wearing underwear this time; boyshorts with polka dots. There are red frills for Trixie to pinch and she does. Katya must've bought them to wear for her. Trixie wants to rip them apart and suck the cotton dry.

"Do you like them, Big T?

She nods. Katya smiles, then covers her face with her hands as Trixie pulls them down past her twitching knees; her hands slide up to tug at her hair when Trixie pats them, squeezes her kneecaps. Her face is red and wet with tears and sweat, among the liquid that has run down from her mouth to her cleavage.

Trixie pushes her panties down further with her boot to have them fall onto her the one. She wraps her hand around her cock and presses her swollen head onto Katya’s clit hard enough to have her legs kick. She cries out that she’s not going to last much longer. Trixie could fuck her senseless for a good while and wants to. Katya’s at her wits’ end already, so she figures she ought to be forgiving, what with Katya being kind enough to have her over.

She strokes up and down her folds, over her soaked pubic hair and rubs her clit with her fingers until and throughout Katya's long and loud orgasm. It draws a moan out of Trixie that has Katya moaning even louder as she goes on, coming all over herself. Trixie pulls back to better her view and waits for Katya's breaths to even out. “Want me to come?”

Katya nods fast, hair mussing up against the bedding. "On me, on me."

She jerks off until she’s coming onto Katya’s pussy, coating her hair, and then her hands when Katya brings them down to drag her fingers through it all, spreading her come over her hips and stomach. Trixie grunts and she pumps herself quicker to give her more. Her eyes roll back at the sight of Katya pulling her shirt over her head so she can lather her come over her breasts. She plays with her tight nipples and Trixie longs to take them into her mouth even more, now.

"You paint yourself real nice,” Trixie mutters it quietly as she holds herself up off of her with a fist in the bed, and she finishes with a sigh. She lets herself collapse halfway onto Katya but not fully; she's tired, but not tired enough to flatten her. Trixie's legs are between hers, her face buried in Katya's curls on the bed. Katya wraps her arms around her back and her hands feel so small on her broad shoulder blades.

They're quiet together and Trixie opts to listen to the sound of Katya's breathing over the sound of the record skipping one room over.

Katya coughs and clears her throat. Trixie lifts her head lazily to look at her just as lazily, eyes half-lidded with the beginning of slumber; she brushes a lock of hair off of Katya's wet face and strokes her ear with her thumb. "Somethin' the matter?"

"Water," She croaks it and Trixie is wide awake. She rolls off of Katya and her boots land on the floor with a loud thud. Trixie hikes up her underwear and pants and sucks in her gut to fasten them. She can hear the rustling of sheets and sees Katya sitting up, rubbing at her throat and then popping her jaw back and forth in her hand. Trixie swallows and pads out the room.

It's dark now, evening light from outside deepened into night, and she turns on various antique lamps set on small tables as she walks past them. Trixie navigates over shoes and records and fallen knickknacks as she heads towards the open kitchen. She goes through the cabinets until she finds the one holding glassware, then pops out ice cubes from the tray in the freezer and plunks them into the glass; the scratched-up logo on it claims that it's from some Hawaiian vacation in '90.

She hums. It's one of two states in the country that she's never been to. She fills the glass with water from the sink and jogs a little in returning to Katya's bedroom. She comes back to all the bed's pillows stuffed behind Katya's back. She's still covered in their joined come and she doesn't appear to mind, brushing her hair idly with her fingers.

Katya smiles at Trixie and rubs the spot in the bed next to her. She stands beside Katya instead and offers the glass for Katya to take; she doesn't, choosing to sip at it slowly and staring up at her as Trixie tilts it back for her. Trixie waits wordlessly until she takes the last drink. Katya gestures that she can set the glass right on the nightstand and she does, on a stack of wrinkled Vogue magazines.

Katya sucks in her lips as Trixie scratches at her ass; she hops up to crawl up her, pulling at her pants then arms to get high enough to kiss her on the cheek. "Thanks babe."

"Sounded like you needed it," Trixie attempts to pry off Katya's fingers. Their chests stick together and Katya uses it to her advantage, slides up and stands up on the bed long enough to wrap her legs around Trixie. She drops her head on her shoulder and Trixie grunts, grips her thighs right so she can set her back down on the bed. Katya gives her a curious look as Trixie steps back and away, picking up her t-shirt off the floor to wipe off her chest; she stares at a framed Night Ranger poster on the wall. It's signed. "I should head out."

"Why?" Katya sticks out her leg and pokes her belly with her socked foot. Trixie grabs her ankle to make her hiss a little and she laughs, peels off her sock and kisses the bottom of her foot. Katya's painted toes wiggle and curl and she sighs, pulls out of Trixie's hand to pull her legs towards herself and sits up. She selects one of her pillows to rest her elbows on in her lap. “You said you had two days off.”

Trixie ignores her in favor of roaming the bedroom. She notes the tokens of varied religious faiths lined up on a shelf. There are two statuettes of Mary, one of Buddha, all surrounded by miniature white ceramic elephants. There's a tarot card with the image of two women and an angel tacked on the wall above the scene; she has no idea what any of it means. Trixie rubs her knuckles on her scalp but stops when she feels the healed scratches. She looks over at herself in one of the three mirrors and catches Katya staring at her. She's too big for the room, for Katya, and she wants out.

"Yes, ma'am," Trixie coughs into her fist. "I did say that."

“Spend them with me,” Katya's exasperated laugh grates on Trixie's ears. Katya tosses the pillow out of her lap and yanks tissues out of the box on the nightstand. She looks down at herself to dab at her chest, her stomach. Trixie watches on with a dry throat; she breathes evenly to keep calm. Still, her cock twitches in her jeans and she turns away from her. "What else is there for you to do here? Gamble?" She laughs again as if the idea is beyond comprehension. "Like, come on."

Trixie sits back on the bed with a grunt. Katya's spreading grin is cautious and the endless, louder and louder ticking of the Felix the Cat clock has her growing soft again with every tick. She folds her hands in her lap regardless. Trixie focuses on the undone laces of her boots while Katya's hands wring her tissues. "I don't tend to stay overnight. Last time was just cause we was out of it, and we both know that. Isn't that why you left in the mornin'?"

Katya's getting more tissues only to wring those as well. A pile forms that tumbles off of the bed and onto the floor. Trixie bends down to pick them up and she flattens them in her palms. She takes the tissues out of Katya's hands as well and tosses them all into the waste bin by the desk. Katya doesn't thank her. "I don't get it. Didn't you come all the way here for me?"

"I think we roll through life in different lanes-" 

"You don't have to take me out if that's what you're worried about," Katya crawls over to her and takes her hands off her own thighs to place herself in Trixie's lap. She rises up some to kiss the top of Trixie's scalp, the slivers of slightly-discolored skin. It surprises Trixie, that Katya remembers. She seems the type to have too much on her plate to bother trying. "I just want you here. I want you here so you can fuck me."

Trixie considers it for too long to be a genuine internal debate; Katya starts nodding and she does too.

Katya giggles and guides her by her shoulders to a lying position on the bed. "What was that about different lanes?"

"I dunno," Trixie rolls her eyes. She closes them when Katya drags her fingertips over her face. She feels Katya crawl off of her and fall onto the bed beside her, hears her draw up the quilt at the edge of her bed to drape it over them both. "I'm tired."

"I know," Katya whispers it but it's loud in Trixie's ear. She mumbles something about taking off her necklace and Katya's hands brush over Trixie's neck to take hers off, then Trixie hears her take her own off as well. Metal clinks on the nightstand. The quilt is itchy and Katya's hair over her nose itches more, but she's too sleepy to care. "Night-night."

 

She wakes up to someone crying and she doesn't move; Trixie convinces herself that it's sleep paralysis acting upon her and not her own free will. She lies in bed for minutes, maybe only seconds, she's in no place to gauge time. Trixie keeps her eyes shut and tries to fall asleep again, but before she knows it she's opening her eyes and watching a figure beside her rock back and forth in the darkness.

Trixie sits up in bed and fumbles around for a light, pulls on the lamp on the nightstand. "Katya?"

"Shit," Katya's hunched over next to her. She's wiping her face frantically; her voice is even more frantic and she curls in on herself as she looks over at her. Trixie scoots away some. "I thought you were out like a light. How," Katya tries to fix her hair but gives up as frustratedly as she started. She shakes her head. "How long have you been awake?"

"Dreamin' bad again?" Trixie asks before she can stop herself and Katya looks at her like she was caught stealing. Trixie rubs the sleep out of her eyes and hesitates before continuing on. The bedside lamp illuminates enough of the room so that the fan on the ceiling casts shadows and they play on the wall past Katya. "You was havin' trouble sleepin' last time too."

Katya's guilt is palpable and Trixie swallows, shifts in bed. Katya shivers and pulls the wrangled sheets around herself. It's then that Trixie realizes Katya's still naked; she searches the bed, then gets up to gather what she can find of Katya's clothing on the floor. Katya holds onto the shirt Trixie extends to her too long, curls her fingers around Trixie's. "I was? Did I wake you up?"

Trixie hones in on the color of Katya's fingernails. "Can't be sure. Maybe a truck outside woke me up."

"I'm sorry," Katya squeezes her eyes shut and sighs. Trixie stands still as Katya breathes in and out from her place on the bed. Katya tugs on her hand suddenly and Trixie complies, crawls onto the bed to sit on her feet in front of Katya. How she can make herself look smaller than Trixie's seen her before is troubling. It's sort of entrancing, in a way; she thinks that's why she hasn't left to go to the bathroom yet. "I'm so sorry."

"You don't have to keep apologizin' for everythin'. It's, uh," Katya lets go of her hand to fall into Trixie's chest and she wets it with her face. She breaks out into a couple of random sobs, then quiets. Trixie moves her arms from her sides to hold Katya and watches on in confusion at the couple in the mirror behind the bed. She doesn't recognize either of the women there. Trixie rubs her back with the hand still holding onto Katya's shirt. "It's alright."

"You're such a deep sleeper," Katya says, after a while. She sniffles and wiggles closer into Trixie's chest. Her hair is a mess, more than it has been ever before. It looks like she's been pulling on it. Her hair smells like dried sweat and the saltiness of tears. "I've been crying for half an hour."

Katya tenses in her arms like she regrets saying that and Trixie regrets being awake to hear it. She clears her throat and unhands her. Trixie backs off of the bed to stand and picks her boots up off the floor. Katya grabs her shirt and pulls it over her head, moves like she's getting up too. Trixie holds out a palm to stop her. "I'll sleep on the couch. Give you some space."

"Oh," Katya wipes at her face and holds herself tightly. "Okay. Goodnight."

Trixie closes the door and exhales deeply out of her nose when it's shut.

 

With her feet hanging over the couch and forearm protecting her eyes from the morning sun, Trixie had been urged by a much more awake Katya to tell her stories about being on the road. Trixie being too groggy for that had sent Katya's desires into wanting Trixie to watch her dance to the same Sade record she's been playing non-stop since she came over. Trixie just wanted to eat.

Katya doesn't have the usual breakfast fare in her kitchen; she explained the various phases of dietary venues she's been exploring and how they lead to a lack of food anybody wants to eat, as she shielded her face with strands of her curls. She then told Trixie that she usually orders take-out or goes out somewhere. Trixie started to go through the fridge to pull breakfast together, but Katya shooed her out and said that she'll come up with something while she takes a shower.

As Trixie uses one of the five different body washes Katya owns she goes over what happened last night. It unsettles her, that someone should have a nightmare bad enough to have them crying. Let alone that someone be Katya, a woman who is more bubbly, lively than Trixie's used to encountering. The woman she beds typically are as tired as she is, as worn out. She closes her eyes and moves the shower head around herself; she can't spray her head without crouching down, she's too tall for the shower and her head sticks out completely past the purple curtain.

Trixie comes out of the bathroom to the overwhelming smell of smoke, followed by the smoke alarm going off. She stands in the doorway, soap dripping down her skin and holding her towel around her waist, looking on as Katya balances precariously on a stool and knocks at the alarm on her ceiling with a broomstick until it shuts up. In the hand Katya has stuck out to help her balance she holds a burning cigarette. She's wearing a D.A.R.E. t-shirt paired with pink cut-off overalls and Trixie chuckles at the irony. It spooks Katya and she nearly topples over, but she catches herself and smiles despite herself.

Katya looks at the burnt food on the stove then back at Trixie. "I gave it my best effort."

"I'll take your word for it," Trixie turns around to head back into the shower.

She comes back out after she's finished and walks past Katya sitting on the couch, flipping through a magazine and pinching a phone between her shoulder and ear. Trixie hears her ordering something as she dresses, putting on her same clothes in Katya's bedroom. Katya's bed is half-made and her outfit from the night before is draped over her hamper. Trixie walks over to the nightstand and finds their necklaces tangled together; she stands silently until they're separated. She puts hers on and sets Katya's back down, then goes back into the living room.

Katya is done with the phone and the magazine; she's reclined on the couch with a blanket over her and is changing the channels on her TV. She settles on a sitcom Trixie can't remember the name of and twists to the side to face her. Katya's eyes are puffy. Despite that, or maybe because of it, she's wearing makeup similar to last night's, complete with her shiny lipgloss and shiner eyelids. "Food should be here in thirty. I got us Italian if that's cool? It's kind of breakfast-ish. Comparatively speaking. The other place that's open before lunch doesn't deliver, so."

"Yeah, alright by me," Trixie sits next to Katya and tries to figure out what they're watching. The height of the couch has her knees jutting up and her shoulders rising past the back of it; Katya throws her arm around Trixie's shoulder as much as she can and scoots in closer. Katya's smiling sweetly. She's managed to fix her hair in the hours since they went back to bed and it looks softer than ever, not stiff with product or sweat like Trixie's only seen it. Trixie leans over to sniff her curls and it makes Katya giggle. "Better than my usual breakfast, I'll tell you that."

"Now she's awake enough to tell stories," Katya speaks around a laugh and Trixie makes a face, which only sends Katya's laughter into a higher range. Trixie takes the remote out of her hand while she's distracted and changes the channel. "No!" Katya drags it out and gestures for the remote. "That's my show."

Trixie hands it over and Katya immediately turns it back. "What the hell was it?"

"Friends!" Katya's delighted to say the name and more so at Trixie's endless, mumbled questions regarding the show. Katya explains who's who and what's what with an excitement that overshadows any shred of impatience she might have. Trixie doesn't give her too much credit, it appears that the episode they're on is a rerun.

A commercial break pauses Katya's analysis of the homoerotic undertone of the female friendships and they sit in relative silence. Katya sings along to the tune of the commercial jingle and fidgets in her seat while Trixie scratches at her corduroys. Trixie starts to hoist herself off the couch to get a beer out of the fridge when Katya's hand grabs ahold of her ass. Katya tugs on a belt loop to persuade Trixie to sit back down.

"I can't stop thinking about you inside me," Katya whispers hot in her ear, leaning hard into her side. She sets a leg over Trixie's thigh, her cutoffs are a soft denim. Katya shifts so she's straddling her leg; Trixie can feel how wet she is and she presses mute on the remote. "It's like I'm going to be ripped apart, you're so big—"

The doorbell rings and Katya bounces up on her leg in surprise. Katya throws her head back with a whine and rolls off of Trixie, hops off the couch and speeds to the door, snatching a purse off the kitchen table on her way. She thanks the delivery person too many times to be polite and shuts the door on them with her ass, cradling take-out boxes in her arms and chewing on a receipt in her mouth. She sets the boxes on the dinner table in no orderly fashion and spits out the receipt on top of them. She doubles back to the couch to drop onto Trixie's lap.

Trixie grips her hips and squeezes her. "I'm starvin'."

"Me too," Katya moans, and she grinds down, presses her chest into Trixie's.

Trixie shakes her head and picks her up, carries her bridal style to the table; Katya squeaks, giggles, then curses her in a huff. She loses her on the emotional journey and Trixie nudges out a chair with her foot to set her in. Katya's pink-cheeked and glaring up at her with her hair falling in her face. Trixie shrugs and sits next to her, spreads out the boxes and pops them open. "Gotta keep up your strength, girl."

Katya sucks on her teeth loud enough to make Trixie look at her with a frown, then tells Trixie what everything is and who it's for.

Trixie eats in a fashion that's courtesy of her years in rowdy truck stops and bars at the hours in which human beings are at their worst; she looks down into her food and hovers over it, shovels whatever is on her plate into her mouth quickly and guards her grub with her shoulders and arms. Meanwhile, Katya lazes in her chair with a foot set in an empty one and pokes at her dish with her plastic fork.

Trixie speaks around a mouthful of bread. "If you ain't gonna eat, go get yourself ready for me."

Katya drops her fork and sits up in her chair a little. "Ready?"

"You know what I mean," Trixie yanks Katya's chair towards her by the leg and enjoys the renewed spread of blush on Katya's face. "Need you nice 'n stretched out, so I can fill you up whole," Trixie lets go of the chair to break off another piece of bread. She looks at the garlic loaves hanging in the kitchen as she continues, ignoring the squirming around she hears from Katya. "Real wet, too. So you can back up on me easy. Knowing you, though," Trixie smiles as she swallows down her food. "You won't have to warm up much."

Katya stays sitting in her chair no longer than a moment and scoots it loudly out from the table. Trixie listens to the padding of her feet to the bedroom as she dips another piece of bread in the juice seeping out of her steak.

 

She could tell Katya had been rehearsing how to fuck herself on Trixie with other people. It is among many things that have been made clear in their time together.

Katya likes to be fucked until she's worn down and limp; Trixie has to guide her to and from the bathroom with an arm around her slender waist because she's too spent to get up on her own. She likes all the endearments Trixie calls her, but she likes, even more, to be called mean names and a bad girl. She likes Trixie encouraging her with an understanding nod, but even more-so she likes her correcting her with a swift palm. She likes her hair pulled and twisted until she's sobbing, her ass and hips squeezed hard enough to form bruises.

The first full day they spent together Trixie learned all of this; she's coming to know Katya's body like the back of her hand. Hours into the second day that they're spending together, she's coming to know Katya's mind. As much of it as she can understand, anyway. She does try, but to try with someone like Katya is trying itself.

Trixie is drinking a glass of water at the dinner table by herself while Raja and Katya are smoking from a hookah on the kitchen countertops. Katya phoned Raja sometime before Trixie came to, spread out on the couch for the second day in a row. She's only comforted terrified people on the sides of roads, not the side of a bed. All she can think of doing is giving Katya all the space she needs. She doesn't stop to think if it's the space she wants.

Katya's wearing a tank top and denim skirt with Trixie's skiing vest overtop; she's promised to return it before Trixie leaves. Raja's wearing her trucker hat, though it sits on her head too high and crooked to be comfortable. Trixie finishes her water and strolls over to the pair, sets the empty glass in the sink before leaning against it.

Raja takes the hat off her head and puts it on Katya's. "She had it on before we heard you wake up."

"I want one," Katya says seriously. She motions for Trixie to come near and pulls at her shirt to have her standing in between her legs. She wraps her arms around her shoulders. "Will you buy me one, Big T?"

Trixie plays with a strand of Katya's hair, then slips out of Katya's grasp to rifle through her fridge for something strong to drink. The brand of beer Katya keeps in stock it is not her choice of drink; it's too sweet and light for her tastes, but she isn't too picky to turn her nose up at it. She bends over to poke around at the leftovers from the day before. "Go out and get you one."

Katya doesn't respond for some time and Trixie huffs a laugh into the cool air of the fridge. She pulls herself out and shuts the door with her fist, pops open a can of some light beer she's unfamiliar with and starts gulping it down, her Adam's apple bobbing. Katya's arms cross then uncross, and her smile is mischevious enough to have Trixie stop drinking her beer. Katya pulls the hat down tighter on her head. "I just did."

Trixie's eyes flash and Raja coughs to remind her and Katya of the group setting.

"Big T," Raja starts, handing the hose off to Katya who takes it with enthusiasm and greed, she smokes from it with even more of both. Raja pulls her blonde hair into a ponytail for her without a word, like they've done that a thousand times before. "We were just discussing the sensuality of girl groups. I'm curious as to what you think of them. Specifically, mine and Katya's band of choice, the Spice Girls."

"Mel B is a dream," Katya sighs out smoke and her own dreaminess increases as Trixie wanders over to her; the sunlight pouring in through the kitchen window makes her face completely white, hiding her features until Trixie edges closer. She sets her hip against the cabinet next to Katya, who smiles and plays with the hair cascading from the back opening of the hat. Katya offers a hit to Trixie and shrugs at her wave of a hand. "Who's your favorite, baby?"

Trixie scratches her stomach through her shirt and takes another drink. "Who are we talkin' 'bout again?"

"Like you don't know," Katya fixes her with a look and Trixie can see Raja slide off of the cabinet and busy herself with going through the utensils drawer. Katya doesn't notice. Trixie pretends not to. "Raja says you've been to all of the nightclubs here," She gestures around with the hose for emphasis, "Every single club, including Rain, plays the Spice Girls."

"You sound like you're complaining, Ya-ya," Raja interjects, shutting the drawer to punctuate. Her and share a smile. Trixie feels like she's intruding and throws back a drink with closed eyes. "You have the DJ around your little finger. And you've been on hers, clearly."

"I've been around the block once or twice," Katya giggles at Raja's eye-roll and bumps Trixie's shoulder before squeezing it, taking some of the worn-in fabric into her hand. Her shirt smells of old sweat and Katya sucks in her lips, her fingers twitching as they clutch onto her shirt hard before she releases it. “You've met Raja, right? She dances at Rain with me."

Trixie nods. Raja smirks and leans against the cabinet close to them and she takes another hit from the hookah. She blows a thick plume of smoke, twists her lips to have it curl through the air and claw into Trixie's nostrils. Trixie waves her head around to dispell the smoke from hitting her eyes. "We had a very nice chat, Big T and I."

"Raja dances with a snake," Katya brags for her, sets her elbow on Trixie's shoulder as she waits for Raja to pass her the hose again. "A python or boa or whatever, it's a total trip-fest. A real hypnotic number. She goes all out, fog machines and funky music, the whole shebang. Like Salma Hayek in that movie, you know?"

"I don't," Trixie says simply. She points at Raja with her beer can. "Where do you the snake dancin'? I didn't see none of that."

"For starters, I'm better than Salma Hayek," She hums with pursed lips and Katya blushes, says an apology under her breath. Raja continues on. "I dance in the private rooms upstairs, not the on main floor. Or God forbid, in that fucking eyesore of a cage."

Katya smacks at the air between her and Raja, then proceeds to properly smack her on the thigh. "It's not that bad!"

"To you," Raja hands off the hose again with exaggerated bugged eyes. She breathes out smoke through her nose and she laughs a little, looking at Trixie. "Katya here is more about everyone seeing her."

"I am not," Katya pulls her ponytail undone with a sigh and flicks the hairband at Raja. She pulls off Trixie's hat and sets it behind her, runs her hand through her hair. "That's all his doing."

Trixie's lost in the conversation; she leans forward as if physically pushing back into it and Katya chases after her to keep her elbow on her. Trixie could just as easily exit the kitchen and watch Katya's TV, let the two friends talk in private, but she likes how Katya can't stop touching her. It keeps her settled. "Who?"

Katya and Raja respond in sync. "Our boss."

"He's if Vegas was a person," Raja clarifies further for Trixie.

“And not nearly as pretty."

Raja scoffs. "Katya, you're such a barracuda," Raja leans forward to be inches from Trixie's face and cups her hand around her mouth to hide from Katya. Trixie's eyebrows raise at her behavior and her eyes flicker between her and Katya for a second. Raja whispers to Trixie much too loud to be truly concerned with secrecy. "She loves shiny things."

Trixie frowns and leans away from her. She takes a final sip of her beer and grunts into the almost-emptiness of the can. She rattles it around as if expecting more; she doesn't know why she does it. She doesn't know why she's still in Katya's kitchen, in her house, in Vegas. She sticks out like a sore thumb. "I know what a barracuda is."

Raja's smile drops and she backs away as well. Her eyes bug again as she swipes her hair off her shoulders. "Well. This has been riveting. But I do have a real job to go to, girls. I'll leave you two with a parting gift," She slides a hand into her dress pocket and pulls out a plastic baggie stuffed with tiny mushrooms.

"Oh my God," Katya hops off the counter; she stumbles a bit in her landing, being half-way on Trixie, who helps her to stand properly. Katya winks at her and takes a leap forward to throw herself onto Raja. She swipes the bag out of her hand while they're hugging and Raja smiles into her hair. "You didn't!"

"I got them for us, but with your new friend here," Raja jerks her chin up at Trixie; her frown is gone but she's silent, and she twists her hips to set the empty can in the sink, inside the empty glass from earlier. "And I don't care for a repeat of last time."

"You're no fun," Katya hugs her tighter, tosses her back and forth to have them both swaying side to side. "Thank you, thank you."

Raja tears herself away and kisses Katya on the cheek. She slings her canvas purse that was set next to Katya's on the table over her shoulder and stops at the door. "Darling," She waves her goodbye to Katya and continues it half-heartedly for Trixie. "Big T."

Trixie raises two fingers in salute. Katya spins on her heel when Raja closes the door behind her and tosses the bag at Trixie, who catches it in her raised hand. She inspects it as Katya approaches with her hands behind her back; Katya rocks on her tip-toes as she stands before her. "So you're doing these with me, right?"

"Shrooms?" Trixie opens the bag and picks out one, rubs it between her fingers, sniffs it. She grimaces and drops it back into the bag, turns it over to Katya. "What do they do to you?"

Katya cups her own face and smiles wickedly. Her eyes glint to match and Trixie's mouth goes dry. She's in need of another can of beer. "You're going to find out in the best way."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn't a revelation. Yet in the warmth and softness of Katya’s bed, with her inviting body beside her, it feels like one. Katya kisses her shoulder and Trixie moans a little. It is settled in her mind, then. Katya doesn't have to go any further with her pleading. Trixie can tell by the look in her eyes that she will anyway, and she'll take great joy in it, in getting what she wants. Trixie can't deny it gives her a thrill as well, to supply that for Katya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a frame of reference, chapter one took place on New Year's Day 1997, chapter two took place later that morning and then three months later, so the beginning of April. This chapter builds on the last day in chapter two, then skips ahead to July 1997.
> 
> I suppose this chapter could be titled "Honey, you got a big storm comin'." Merry Christmas.

Cigarette butts are scattered all around Trixie's feet and she mashes the final one Katya drops onto the ground with her heel. As they sit on the hood of Katya's car, the evening dog walkers talk amongst themselves and wave politely as they pass by, those nice suburbanites who are worlds away from them in the short distance from Katya's driveway to the sidewalk.

One couple walks their blubbering baby in a stroller and Katya takes one look at the family before looking over at Trixie with her eyebrows raised, laughter suggested on her smiling lips. It doesn't need to be let out for Trixie to hear it perfectly.

They're quiet together, listening to the cicadas chirp in what there are of trees in the suburbs of a desert. Katya's unwilling to go inside. Trixie knows her pouting has everything to do with the phone in her kitchen, the one Trixie will have to use to call a cab to take her back to the truck plaza. She'll be away for months again. This thought repeats in her mind and it begins to sound terrible with every passing second.

The feeling of defeat isn't a common one to wash over Trixie. If at any time, it has only arisen when she's been out on a haul long enough to have her eyes burning with sleep deprivation, her mind breaking under the weight of her job. When it does happen, she wills herself to get through it.

Trixie isn't one to complain, not even to herself. She doesn't know where she'd be or what she'd be doing if she let herself think hard about how lifeless her life is. But here she is. As close to wallowing in self-pity as she's been in a good while. Delaying that phone call as long as she can the same as Katya; two grown women using the logic of foolish teenagers.

It's a continuing theme for them. They had acted like foolish teenagers in the daylight hours as well, sunbathing by the pool of the Monte Carlo, sitting in reserved chairs and putting their purchased alcohol on some unfortunate room number's tab. For the life of her, Trixie cannot remember a majority of what they had talked about as they huddled together conspiratorially.

What she remembers are simple notions; Trixie had called her stupidly beautiful and Katya mocked her farmer's tan. There had to have been more. She's too comfortable around her now to not have shared something meaningful. They had to have shared it in-between the kisses that were salacious even by Vegas standards or during the excessive amount of sunscreen lathering.

Regardless, the pair reached the peak of their respective highs together and Katya celebrated that by stripping off her water-soaked underwear to tan in the nude, legs and arms spread out under the sun.

They got kicked out soon after, Katya's sweeping influence across the city unable to withstand in the face of horrified vacationing families. Katya had laughed manically, high as well as tipsy on piña coladas, while Trixie gathered up their clothes and then Katya in her arms to make their exit as swift as possible.

As someone who on principle never runs unless a life is on the line,  _swift_  for Trixie meant that Katya still had plenty of time to yell filthy things at the man ushering them out. As of today, they are both banned indefinitely. Katya found it hilarious the entire dizzy ride home while Trixie drove them back, operating on the scattered memories of the directions she had been given days ago.

Katya laughs about it now. The sweet sound draws Trixie out of her fascination with the sprinklers sputtering cool water across the lawn and by virtue of her closeness to the grass, across the side of her face. It sprays Katya, too.

She shivers and Trixie drapes her dry flannel shirt around Katya's shoulders, Katya's dainty fingers brushing over Trixie's thick knuckles as she pulls at the shirt to hold the warm fabric tight around herself. She's wearing her damp bra; she had attempted to dry it out on her dash using the heating, to no avail. She didn't bother with her underwear and found a pair of dubiously clean boxers in her trunk to shimmy on instead.

Trixie is confident that they are not Katya's, and she wouldn't put it past her to have done that number before in her driveway. She humored Katya by telling her everyone was looking as she dressed, pulling back curtains and peering over hedges to take a gander at the odd couple. She knows that's what Katya would've liked, but the truth is the only one who couldn't take their eyes off of her was Trixie.

It's strange, that Katya should live in a place like this, surrounded by families on all sides. Trixie supposes she's in no position to speak on the matter. Mostly, she's curious about how Katya affords it, as a go-go dancer, as someone so wild, as someone who screams the opposite of settling down in a quiet neighborhood. Trixie wonders if they have more in common than she had previously believed. It's a sobering thought.

Trixie waits for the car pulling into the driveway across the street to shut off its engine before she speaks up. “How’d you know?”

Katya stops mouthing the names of constellations she's been charting in the sky. She's perched on the hood, her tiny feet drawn up, bruised knees pulled to her chest. Her painted toenails shine via streetlights, but Trixie thinks it ought to be because of the stars. Trixie surprises herself with the notion; she doesn't know when she got pathetically poetic.

She figures the mushrooms are to blame. There's a weird crossing of both fuzziness and clarity to the world; the usual muddledness of her thoughts and feelings, the repression of them both, is somewhat lacking. But her surroundings are blurry. There are colorful halos around every light, and when anything moves there is a trail of motion behind it. She's not sure which symptom is more alarming.

“Hm?” Katya inclines her head and Trixie's feels like it's sinking, wanting to kiss her at the sight. She knows she could, that Katya would want it too, that she seems to want everything from her, more than anyone ever has before. It doesn't register as so scary as it had hours ago. Katya's cheeks look so soft and she smiles gently when Trixie draws the rough pad of her thumb over her skin. "Know what?"

She could ask a million things. She considers it, for a moment. She could ask Katya how she knew Trixie would stay with her, how she knew Trixie would do drugs with her, or how she knew Trixie is a woman. Trixie figures the answers lie with the reputation she's apparently earned in the city, according to Raja. But she doesn't roll off her curiosities, she doesn't want to.

An answer to a dire question doesn't concern her right now. She just wants to hear Katya talk. About anything.

“That I was there for you, that first night at Rain," Trixie offers. She pinches the thin layer of Katya's cheek fat and wiggles it between her fingers, before planting her hand down on the cool of metal to ground herself. "I was just someone at the bar. You picked me right out, like a bloodhound."

"It was kind of obvious you weren't there for the club scene," Katya says. She scoots closer, the hood squeaking lowly underneath her. Katya chips off a sliver of paint with the metal button on her denim skirt. The car must be worth more than Trixie's childhood home. Katya shrugs. She probably gets the nicks fixed for free with her pretty smile. "I saw how Raja stalked off. She's still P.O.'d about that night."

Trixie didn't appreciate Raja's attitude earlier, but she considers the possibility of drugs as a token of friendship. A peace offering. Trixie sniffs and throws a hand around in a vague gesture. "Hell, she can get in line."

Katya brandishes a serious face at her remark and Trixie puts one on to match and then they're laughing, Katya squeezing Trixie's thigh and burrowing into her shoulder. The cicadas take over again once they quiet back down. A man in a glowing windbreaker walks by with a white chihuahua on a leash and Trixie does a double take.

Katya had said visions weren't as elaborate for shrooms as they are for other psychedelics. Her voice was tender as she reassured her, like a mother telling her child the first day of school isn't anything to fear. She differed from a mother in that instead of breakfast, she was chopping up the mushrooms to make tea. A half-hour after drinking a mug of it, Trixie was seeing shapes whenever she closed her eyes.

Trixie can't help but doubt what she said, as the tiny dog turns its head to stare back at her before the man urges it to move on with a whistle. Katya interrupts her thoughts by sighing sweetly.

“You have womanly eyes," Katya says. Trixie laughs in disbelief at her, giggling deep and ridiculous. Katya bounces on the hood, stretching out the scratched line of paint. “You do!”

“If you say so,” Trixie's giggle winds down and she folds her arms. She feels ten years younger all of a sudden, stupid and weightless. Happy.

They're quiet again. Evening darkens into night, leaving them as the only ones still outside in the neighborhood. The automatic lights by Katya's garage brighten and it is as if the pair exists in the insides of a hazy white bubble. Katya adjusts Trixie's shirt around her shoulders then shrugs it off. She rubs the fabric between her fingers, pinching the dark, old sweat stains in the armpits.

“Whatever you must think of me, I promise I’m fine. You just," Katya pauses as she puts her arms through the shirt sleeves. The shirt dwarfs her, coming to rest past her knees, and she bunches the ends of the sleeves up in her fists. Anxiety rolls off of her as plainly as the lingering smell of pool water. Both make Trixie's stomach twist. "Caught me at an odd time.”

"Hey," Trixie speaks in a gentle reprimand and she doesn't stop her whole body from softening. Katya looks at her curiously. Trixie unfolds her arms and sets a hand on her knee. “I didn’t say anythin’.”

“You don’t have to. Your eyes are expressive, too,” Katya drops one leg off of the hood at a time and presses closer to Trixie's side. She's warm, bundled up in the soft flannel. Trixie appreciates how Katya’s heat seeps into her skin. The night air is nipping at her but she can't damn it when she's only wearing jeans. Katya rubs her cheek against Trixie's bicep. “They give you away."

Trixie wraps her arm around Katya's shoulders. It is an arduous process made only slightly more feasible under the influence, but she's making headway in adjusting to Katya's intensity, her way with easy affection. If she was one for self-congratulation, Trixie would mark allowing Katya to melt into her instead of pushing her away as a vast, impressive improvement from before. She's reminded of how she used to be.

"But I like them. They’re nice,” Katya sounds far-off, but her stare bores hard into Trixie. She reaches out her hand to stroke down Trixie’s temple, push in on the hint of purple skin underneath her right eye. She traces a finger around the corners of her eyes, the shallow-set wrinkles, then over her eyelashes. “Pretty.”

“Drugs must still be takin’ hold of you," Trixie says simply. Katya presses her pinky into the wrinkle between Trixie's eyebrows as it deepens. 

“No. Not anymore," An airplane roaring overhead drowns out Katya's voice, but the sound of the cicadas could've done the job just as fine. Katya draws her hand away and she pushes off the hood to stand in the middle of the driveway. Trixie slings off her hat to run her hand over her scalp. She scrubs over the stubble with her knuckle and slaps her hat back on.

She repeats this process twice as if the ritual will summon a way to make this easier. Katya's staring down at her jellies. Trixie grunts. “Well. I gotta go, lil' lady."

Katya nods and Trixie follows her inside to call the cab service. After Katya comes out of the bedroom with fresh clothes and Trixie hangs up the phone, they sit at the kitchen table while Katya paints Trixie's fingernails. They wait the twenty minutes that it takes for the cab to arrive without saying a word, letting MTV on the television fill the silence.

It is not like the kind they shared outside. A car horn beeps by Katya's front yard suddenly and Trixie clears her throat.

"I'm gonna give you my number. I don't know if that'll help much. I'm at home less than you could imagine," Trixie drawls, and she pulls out her wallet to pluck out an old business card, one from a closed-down crab shack in Georgia. She starts to get up to get a pen, only to see Katya already handing her one. She thanks her hastily, scribbles her home phone on the blank side. "But. Hey, it's a start, ain't it?"

She taps it with her fingers, then slides it across the table to peek out from under Katya's. Katya sits still, then points at Trixie's wallet, at the first photograph visible in the plastic accordion insert tucked inside of it. "Who are they?" 

Trixie smiles fondly at the two women in the picture. The colors are faded and bent, white streaks scrawled all across from years of folding and unfolding. She hums. "Good people."

As she walks Trixie back out, Katya has one hand resting on her ass. She tells her not to pick at her nails and she goes over the brand's name and specific color, so Trixie can buy it for herself whenever it's all eventually scraped off. Trixie's opening the car door when her elbow is tugged on.

“Can I give you a kiss?” Katya asks. Her voice doesn't waver, but her eyes are beginning to shine. Trixie leans down as an answer; Katya cups her face and she scratches lightly over the thick stubble that's built up over the days. She presses her thumbs down on Trixie's lips, and she wipes the pads of them across the flesh back and forth slowly.

“A goodbye kiss?” Katya's fingers muffle Trixie's question. It makes Katya giggle, though weakly, offering meager relief.

“Not a goodbye. You’re coming back," Katya stands on her tiptoes to kiss her cheek, then her mouth. She lowers and tugs on the metal links around Trixie's neck, pulling her closer. "You need a better necklace."

"This one's fine," Trixie breathes out. She's anxious now, desperate to touch all she can of Katya and memorize her softness and her warmth. She runs her palms up and down Katya's sides and squeezes her hips, gentler than she would like, knowing Katya wouldn't tell her to stop if they started on her driveway. The cab driver honks their horn again and Trixie doesn't bother to look away from Katya to tell them to wait.

Katya tugs on the necklace again, hard enough to choke Trixie a little, then she releases it. She stares at Trixie's chest as if the squares of her flannel are fascinating before she cranes her neck to look up at her. She shakes her head. "You need a pretty one."

"How's it gonna be pretty?" Trixie sounds dried out and she blinks rapidly. Her palms sweat onto Katya’s skirt.

"It'll have my face on it," Katya whispers, and kisses her again. She winds her arms around Trixie's torso to hold onto her tight, squeezing out any air left in Trixie's body. She slides her hands down to knead Trixie’s ass and she burrows her face into her chest, before letting go when the car horn sounds. “I’ll call you.”

Trixie salutes her with two fingers then steps into the cab. She tells the cabbie to drive fast, doesn't answer him when he asks if that was her girlfriend outside. She breaks her silence to tell him to shut up when he starts singing along to Sade on the radio.

 

The towering streetlights on the freeway make the night sky rust-colored, the orange tint casts long across the road until she's off the freeway and the world is black again. The rain is soft outside, soft enough to be barely heard, and if she turned on the radio or put in a cassette tape, her windshield wipers would be the only indication of the dark clouds overhead.

The road is so quiet, every car far off in the distance, and she is the only big rig for miles. It is like she has entered the void; the streetlights cast cold, white light now and they are less frequent. Flashes of roadside attractions, trees, and what-have-you, are just that, flashes. There is nothing, no one.

She mostly ignores the signs on the side of the road and relies on her memory for directions. It comes with the territory of having done this for over a decade, the sort of sensory adaptation to the road, but as she drives past the signs, it's like she's reading the white block lettering on shiny green metal for the first time. Trixie learns of a rock and roll museum that is by the exit she takes whenever she's headed to Virginia, and she almost smiles.

Trixie is tired. Her eyes are wide open but she's exhausted, in a way that doesn't come from driving all day and unloading cargo into a warehouse. She's alone and she feels it, and it used to be just that, a feeling, something that she could recognize and not think twice about, but now it is a feeling of  _being without_. It had slipped from a neutral state into something negative.

She misses Katya. Trixie turns on the radio so she doesn't have to be alone with her thoughts.

  

Every other house on the street, few and far between, leaves their front door unlocked. Trixie doesn’t. She turns her house key in the lock with a gauze-wrapped hand and holds the mail in her other, with her overnight bag weighing down her shoulders. Last night she got into a scuffle outside of a pancake house in Topeka;  _Over somethin' real fuckin' stupid_ , is what she had told Katya over the phone.

She’s been granted some time off to heal, and she wants to do nothing for the next couple of days but sit in her big leather recliner and smoke blunts as she listens to records. Trixie drops her bag at the door with a sigh of relief after she shuts it. She yanks her shoestrings undone and steps out of her boots, and she creeps through the foyer and into the kitchen on sweat-stained and mud-caked socks.

The wood floors still shine like new, and in essence, they are. Sometimes she swears the place still has the new house smell. There's a bathroom down the hall that she's never used. She sometimes forgets which cabinets hold her coffee mugs, but never her beer glasses.

Trixie wants to collapse. She does in a way, slumping over at her kitchen table. She spreads out the mail and piles up the junk letters, scoots them down the long length of the wood table and draws the bills close to her. Trixie’s home a handful of times a month, and she pays things off early to the best of her ability. She's writing a check addressed to the Kentucky state disbursement unit when the telephone rings.

She doesn't have to guess who it could be; the next hour is spent on the couch listening to Katya ramble. She can make the hours feel like minutes on the phone, even when they're talking about nothing; when they're just two people wanting to hear one another's voices. Tonight, the episode of MTV News that Katya is presently watching is at the forefront of topics, taking the spot of last night's focus on a movie that came out on Friday.

Aside from the tidbits of newscasts she hears on the radio when she's in her truck, Katya is her primary source of current events. Trixie travels the width and breadth of America for a living, but she's realized she has little idea of what's happening in the country. Or she did, before Katya. She had no idea who, and apparently also what, Versace was an hour ago, but she's soon educated on everything there is to know about the now hours dead founder of the fashion label.

Katya sniffles as she talks. Trixie can hear the shifting of her body on her couch, the newswoman's somber voice on her television in the background. She wouldn't mind being there next to her. Katya is crying, sure, but Trixie has learned she is prone to do so in response to just about anything and be back to talking the next minute. The novelty of it, the way it had previously unsettled Trixie, has worn down with time.

She isn't next to her, she can't be, so Trixie just listens and offers murmurs of understanding and  _Poor baby's_.

They’ve fine-tuned their system of keeping in touch. Katya calls her first during times when she's home, by now having a basic, if not vague, understanding of Trixie's schedule. Depending on if it’s a reasonable hour for Katya, Trixie is the one to call.

The first night Trixie didn't fall asleep minutes into a phone conversation Katya was so delighted, Trixie didn't tell her it was because ever since she did mushrooms with her, she's been unable to fall asleep easily. The first couple of weeks were the worst of it. She had been nauseous, and the nausea was coupled with migraines that had her picking up sick days. On top of that, she felt a loss of control over her feelings.

On one burning hot Tuesday, on her way to deliver a load to Birmingham, Trixie teared up listening to an old, live recording of Robert Plant singing. Later that day she had called Katya in a roadside bar to ask when it all is supposed to go away, to which Katya said it’s just the aftereffects doing their work, and that it would be a gradual fading. Trixie hated every second of it.

Katya interrupts her relaying of the news, as well as Trixie's thoughts, to say that one of her coworkers is calling and that she'll talk to her tomorrow. She says  _bye-bye_  so hypnotically that Trixie says it right back. She hangs up on Katya after she laughs high and loud at her for it. Trixie can't help laughing too, holding the phone to her chest, before she tosses it onto the stack of Playboy magazines on the coffee table.

Trixie sighs and it's louder than she means it to be. The house is empty. When she listens to music it fills every room, reverberates off the walls. And it's cold. She misses the heat of the sun and the heat of Katya’s body all over hers. How such a little woman can generate so much warmth confounds Trixie. She lets her head sink into the plush of her leather recliner and tries to imagine the plush of Katya’s lips on hers.

The fantasy ends abruptly at the sound of her doorbell ringing. Her eyes open slowly to begin blinking, wondering who the hell would be at her door. She stands, yawns, and doesn't bother to put her pants back on, having unbuttoned and shimmied out of them while on the phone. She picks up her bathrobe from its place draped over the couch and puts it on, crosses the room and opens the front door to a red-haired woman standing on her doormat that reads  _No Soliciting_.

“Hi,” The woman drags it out so long and musically Trixie mistakenly takes her for a caroler at first, someone who takes Christmas in July too seriously. “Beatrice Firkus, right? I’m your new neighbor, Jinkx Monsoon. Well, I’ve been here for months, but. I might as well be new!”

She pauses as if Trixie’s supposed to respond; Trixie just waits, rests her head against the door. Jinkx makes some sort of piano playing gesture then she threads her fingers together and drops them onto her stomach. She's wearing a tartan dress and a matching sun hat, and she'd be looking like a regular suburban mom in her get-up, but her nails are black and she's wearing combat boots the same color.

That, and she looks to be in her early twenties. Then again, Trixie's worldly enough to know one can't dismiss that based on age. The woman’s eyes drop down, bugging when she reaches between Trixie’s legs, then they shoot back up to stare hard at the spot between her eyebrows before meeting her eyes again. Trixie sniffs and scratches her bare thigh, slides a hand into her robe pocket.

Jinkx clears her throat. “Anyway! I’m in a bit of a pickle, and I’ve heard you’re the resourceful type—“

“What is it, Jinkx?” Trixie doesn’t say it unkindly, but her voice is about all that seems somewhat pleasant, if not too tired to put up a fight, send her on her way with a dismissing gesture. 

Jinkx unthreads her fingers to move her hands animatedly. “An animal problem. Just one, singular, small animal, but it’s a problem. I’d rather not bring in animal control because I’ve become attached, so would you mind coming over to give it a look?”

Trixie grumbles and opens the door wider so Jinkx can wait inside. “Let me put on some pants.”

The land between the neighboring houses all along the street makes for not a long walk between Trixie and Jinkx’s, but the latter doesn't stop rattling on as they move out of brown, overgrown grass and into a trimmed, lush field of green; the distance seems to stretch out further with every word out of her mouth. Jinkx is a talker, and Trixie has Katya to thank for not minding it as much as she once would.

“I think it’s been here since last summer," Jinkx begins. "But I don’t always see the little thing, so I assume it runs around the neighborhood. The animal must’ve belonged to the old folks that lived here. I’ve tried everything, but it’ll only come out some if I throw some food towards it, and I do, have been for months."

Jinkx comes to a stop both verbally and physically in her backyard, a couple yards from the shed in the furthermost left corner of it, standing with a hand on her hip. Trixie stands beside her, looking at the decaying wooden structure Jinkx points to.

“Then it goes right back into that old, creepy thing," Jinkx says, her voice high and nervous. "I thought it might be a dog.”

“My neighbors didn’t have no dog,” Trixie says, easing her hands out of her pants pockets and stepping forward. She walks even slower than usual for Jinkx’s sake, upon hearing her anxious pleas to be careful. Trixie sticks her fingers in her mouth to whistle and a small dog's head pops out of the cracked open door. Trixie huffs a laugh and shakes her head. “Well, hell. You weren't wrong about your mystery critter.”

Trixie edges forward more and gets on her knees to be at eye level with the dog, as to keep it calm, not wanting to spook the animal nor Jinkx anymore than they already are. She squints to see better in the night; she notes how the fur should be cream colored, but it’s tinted dark brown with all the dirt coating its body. The dog barks at Trixie as it comes closer, and she sits back on her haunches, hands covering her knees.

“Lily?”

Recognition washes over her and Lily barks again, twice, and Trixie eases a hand towards her dog's nose, so it can reacquaint itself with her scent; Lily licks her hand before licking her chin, then her cheek. Jinkx claps merrily and Trixie keeps her face turned away, her eyes closed as Jinkx wanders over, setting her hand on Trixie’s shoulder.

That stretched-tight feeling in Trixie's chest comes back, the same one that had her crying as she listened to Led Zeppelin, and Trixie lets out a sob that she covers with a cough. Tears roll down her face that Lily licks up, which only serves to produce more tears, then a laugh when Lily’s tongue curls into her nose. Eventually, Trixie stands up.

Jinkx thanks her and pets Lily’s head as Trixie cradles the dog, invites her over to have wine and dinner with her when she is back in town. Trixie clears her throat and nods. She wishes Jinkx a good night as she heads back to her house.

Trixie washes the dirt and grime off of Lily in her tub, writes down a note to stop by a veterinary clinic tomorrow, and makes a bed out of blankets for the dog on her back porch. She places two phone calls before falling asleep on her couch exhausted, but with a grin on her face.

 

Trixie is waiting in the alleyway that Katya led her to so many months ago, leaning against the same wall where she had she licked between Katya's legs. She stands with her hands in her pockets and Lily sitting at her feet. Katya shuffles out of the exit door after a half-hour wait.

She's wearing her trench coat, its matching belt tied tight around her waist. Trixie knows her to be wearing her girly day clothes underneath, just like the first time. Katya looks ready to fall asleep or cry. Trixie calls out her name and Katya looks up from rummaging in her purse. Her smile stretches widely and slowly as she takes in the surprise, her eyes bouncing from Trixie to Lily and back again.

She yells and runs across the alleyway, coins shooting out of her purse as it slings around wildly in her careless grip. Katya leaps onto Trixie, her elbow bumping hard against Trixie's nose, her arm wrapping tight around her neck. Lily barks until Trixie shushes the dog and tells it that everything is alright.

Trixie tells Katya the same as the small woman curls into her, hair covering Trixie's eyes. She has a hand curled under her ass to hold Katya up and strokes her back with the one wrapped in gauze. Katya's shaking under her touch. She lets her cry until she's laughing, pressing wet, sloppy kisses all over Trixie's face. It is quick and mostly painless, but Trixie isn't sure if the tears fallen on her stubbly cheeks are solely Katya's.

"I missed you," Katya whispers, lips rubbing against her ear. Trixie breathes in deeply, lets the stench of sweat and alcohol and weed on Katya's hot skin fill her nose, lets Katya's damp hair fill her mouth. She tightens her grip on her ass as Katya tightens her grip around all of her.

"I know. Let me take you home."

  

Trixie sits back on Katya's bed. She's naked as a jaybird but for her boots and wristwatch, as per requested by the woman of the house, who is busy putting her hair up into a messy bun before she crawls across the sheets to settle between Trixie's spread legs. Katya takes hold of her shin, fingers gentler than they should be stroking her leg hairs as she brings a boot closer to her face. She licks over the tan leather and Trixie groans, deep from her belly that is covered in bite marks and saliva. The sound deepens when Katya straddles her hips.

Trixie's injury lit a fire within Katya that had her wanting to take care of Trixie by _taking things slow_ , as she put it so kindly, with her greedy hands all over her ass. Taking things slow consisted of kissing hard and heavy on the couch until Trixie could feel her lips swelling against Katya's, her cock swelling in her jeans as Katya's breaths burned her skin, as ample breasts in a tight t-shirt squished against her mostly flat chest.

Katya having built up a respectable level of patience impressed Trixie so much, she was wet even before Katya took her back to her bedroom and laid out on the bed first to warm herself up. She was dripping as Katya at last relented the duties to Trixie, who ate her out for an hour until they were both soaking and aching for it, for each other.

“Easy now,” Trixie says. Katya’s eyes are closed but she nods, bites her lip as she wraps a hand around Trixie's cock, the other squeezing the fat of Trixie’s belly. Her thumb presses down into her bellybutton, her nail scraping over the thick happy trail. Trixie swallows, eyes flitting down to the lime green nail polish chipping off all across her skin, shiny with sweat and Katya's wetness.  “You gonna ride me like a horsey?”

Katya moans in response and rubs her folds up and down against Trixie desperately. She draws Trixie into her, slow and steady, taking her in completely. Not many women, nor men, nor anybody, can take all of her and she wants to thank Katya for being able to. For being so _good_. Trixie's head falls back into the pillows with another groan and her fingers dig into Katya's fatty asscheeks. Katya shifts above her then stills, allowing herself a moment to adjust.

"God, I love how you do that," Trixie sighs. Katya's eyes widen as she begins to move on her and Trixie's face warms. She turns her head on the pillow to stare at the arrangement of pictures framed on her nightstand. The fashion magazines from her last visit are gone. As she makes eye contact with a Katya smiling behind the rim of a shot glass, she thinks Katya is far prettier than any of the women who were on the covers. She is sure Katya would agree, if the fingerprints on the mirror behind the bed are any indication.

Katya begs her to watch as her movements grow more frenzied, Trixie eventually complying. Sweat droplets fly off of Katya's breasts as they bounce, falling down on Trixie's chest and face, and her nipples harden under Trixie's gaze. Her hair falls more and more out of its style, frizzing in the heat of the room. Trixie sits up to curl her arms under Katya's armpits and she grips her shoulders, smooths her thumbs over her hot, sweat-slicked skin.

“Baby…” Trixie drawls. Katya smiles languidly, pleasantly at the name. She mouths it back to herself with her eyes closed, her smile widening. Trixie has to bite her lip to stop a gasp, but she can't stop her toes from twitching. “You’re takin’ it so good.”

“I am,” Katya moans, nodding her head. She nods her head again over and over quickly and swallows down a whine. “I am, I am. I'm your girl.”

“Yeah, you are," Trixie says, grinning brightly. She kisses Katya's jaw and moves her tongue over the hard line of it, licking over the small build-up of acne; all the make-up she wears and the sweat she produces nightly surely the cause of it. Katya wraps her arms lazily around Trixie's neck. "You’re doin’ such a good job.”

“Such a good job," Katya repeats. She's in a daze, eyes unfocused and directed at something above Trixie's head that isn't there. She drops her head down onto Trixie's shoulder as her bounces lose their vigor. Trixie picks up the pace for her and Katya whines at length, before her voice drops to a breathy murmur. "Baby's doing her best.”

“Aw. I don’t know about that,” Trixie says, scoffing to cover the crack in her voice. She pulls back Katya's head by her hair and takes a hard nipple into her mouth, scraping uneven teeth over the skin at the same time that she smacks her ass. Katya lets out a yell and writhes on top of her, getting wetter as Trixie sucks on her nipple, massages her asscheek. Trixie holds her tight to keep her still, licks over the baby hairs of her cleavage. She speaks against the flesh she's reddened. “I think you can do a lil' more. Don'tchu?”

“Yes,” Katya moans. She's bouncing harder every time Trixie brings her hand down; the  _yes's_  get squeakier as Trixie spanks her with growing firmness until the whines turn into hiccups. Katya rides her without relent or sense, the sounds coming out of her devoid of any sanity. Trixie bucks her hips to push even deeper into Katya, enough to have her throw her head back and scratch up Trixie's shoulders, her back, leaving behind pink lines.

Katya comes with a shrill scream that rumbles down into a slutty moan. She continues to roll her hips on Trixie, spellbound, unwilling to get off of her. Trixie lets her go uninterrupted for a couple more minutes. She looks at her watch, brushes Katya's hair out of her face where it has fallen into her eyes and sticks to her cheeks with her sweat. “Hey. I need to get goin' soon.”

"No," Katya says, as loud and clear as she’s spoken all night. She plants her hand in the center of her chest and Trixie lets her push her back down. She squeezes her pecs, tugs on the hairs around her nipples to make her grunt. Trixie's eyes roll back into her head and Katya hums, delighted. “No. You are exactly where you need to be.”

"Fuck," Trixie gasps. She slides a hand up Katya's stomach and squeezes one of her breasts. Katya leans down to kiss her deeply, the various soft and muscular parts of their bodies being squished together in a way that makes them both shudder. Trixie wraps her arms around her and runs her hands up and down her sweaty back, fingertips traveling over her spine. Katya breathes heavily into her neck after she pulls her tongue out of her mouth. She sits up and back down on Trixie. 

“Do you fuck women in your big truck?” Katya asks, laughing, breathless. Her ass pats Trixie's thighs with every bounce. She whines at the look Trixie gives her. “Oh. You do.”

Trixie takes her hands off of Katya to reach behind her, one hand clutching the pillow crushed under her head and the other coiling around the bed frame. Katya's fucking her now, fucking her slow and dirty. Trixie mumbles dumbly underneath her. Unable to understand herself, she doesn't bother to try to clarify to Katya.

"You're the perfect woman," Katya utters. Trixie stills underneath her, choking on her own breath. Her hips buck and Katya grimaces in pleasure. She nods her reassurance, saying it again and again until Trixie is moaning, coming inside her. Katya cries out in surprise, her fingers digging into Trixie's face, practically smothering her as she rides her hard through her orgasm.

Katya comes again, quickly. She raises her hips to pull herself off and their shared come runs out between her legs, dripping onto her thighs and Trixie's. She falls down onto the bed next to Trixie, her pleasurable giggle forcing out another moan from Trixie. Their breaths become soundless after a few minutes rest and Trixie stares at the ceiling, watches the fan spin. It has been a long time since she's been the one to be ravaged. She feels dizzy and light-headed.

"I meant that," Katya says, firmly. Trixie shifts in the bed when she feels eyes on her, rolls over to see Katya with her hands tucked under her head, staring at her. Her hair is wild, sticking to her skin in places and sticking out in others. It is dreamlike, unreal. Trixie cards a careful hand through it. She pulls on one of Katya's curls gently, just to see it bounce back into place. She tucks it behind Katya's ear.

"I know you did," For a sleepy second, she thinks about how she'd like the curl to stay put so she can play with it in the morning, but she knows she needs to be gone by then. The thought fizzles into nothing as Trixie yawns, adjusts her head on the pillow to be more comfortable. She's drifting off to sleep until Katya's hand is cupping her cheek.

"You have to leave tomorrow. But I don’t want you to. I really don't want you to," She breathes it out all at once, as though she'd been holding it in for too long. Katya's eyes squeeze shut like she is awaiting an immediate, terrible response. She doesn't get one. Seconds tick by without a word from Trixie.

"Katya," Trixie starts. She doesn't know where to go from there. Katya opens her eyes and Trixie removes her hand from her hair. The sweat and come on her skin become cold. "Baby, I have to. I have to."

"Please don't," Katya whispers. She scoots closer, closes her fingers around Trixie's wrist. She kisses the back of her hand and Trixie's eyes flutter. She kisses her hand again, doesn't move her mouth from her skin. Trixie knows she can feel her quick pulse. "Please."

Trixie pulls out of Katya’s grasp easily, sits up in the same motion and blood rushes to her head. She grunts at the pain, bringing up the same hand to rub over her forehead. Her skin is on fire where Katya pressed her lips.

Katya sits up too, though slower, more careful than Trixie. She tugs the covers all the way off the bed to wrap them around herself and Trixie shivers. Katya sighs, but she frowns at Trixie. Her tone is more angry than downcast. "I don't get why your schedule is so fucking strict."

"It's always been," Trixie mutters, rubbing her temples. Katya curls a hand over her shoulder, squeezing the knotted muscle in it for her. Trixie had grown used to the pain hours ago. She gasps as it is released with a hard squeeze from Katya's fingers. "Jesus. It's always been."

It isn't a revelation. Yet in the warmth and softness of Katya’s bed, with her inviting body beside her, it feels like one. Katya kisses her shoulder and Trixie moans a little. It is settled in her mind, then. Katya doesn't have to go any further with her pleading. Trixie can tell by the look in her eyes that she will anyway, and she'll take great joy in it, in getting what she wants. Trixie can't deny it gives her a thrill as well, to supply that for Katya.

"Can't you be off schedule? Just this once," Katya says. She pulls Trixie's hands away from her face and settles into her lap, wrapping her arms around her neck again. She kisses her nose and Trixie sinks underneath her. "Please? For me?"

 

"I wouldn’t have thought you’d want company on the road,” Katya is seated on the floor, petting Lily. The dog's fur is warm, though spotted with fresh dirt, from the time spent on Katya's front lawn, under the morning sun. Lily runs all around Katya and over her lap, in an endless cycle that Katya doesn't seem to mind. Trixie sits on the couch, sipping at the mug of coffee and vodka Katya made for them to share. Only the last third of it had been saved for her.

Trixie rests her mouth on the lipgloss stained rim of the mug and gestures to Lily teething Katya's robe. She laughs at Katya's surprised yelp, leading to her spilling some of the drink on her neck. “I wanted to spend some time with her before I have to say goodbye."

“What do you mean?" Katya asks. She eases Lily's teeth off of the marabou cuffs of her sleeves and her face wrinkles in confusion. Trixie wipes her fingers over her neck, picking up the drops of liquid. She closes her lips around her knuckles and pretends not to notice Katya's hesitation, the swallow before she speaks again. "You just got her back.”

“I’m not home enough to take care of her. She needs someone who can," Trixie adjusts on the couch, spreads her legs more to stretch. She pulls the lapels of the robe she's wearing closer together over her bare chest. Katya had bought for her sometime during their time apart, _saw it and thought of you_ , Katya had said over their breakfast of cheesecake leftovers. _I wanted to see you in something fancy_ , she continued, as Trixie got on her knees on the kitchen floor.

The robe is far less extravagant than the one Katya is sporting and Trixie appreciates that. The most eye-catching part was the price tag Katya tore off of it once she saw that it fit her. The soft material grew itchy after seeing the cost and she doesn't intend to take it with her. She could ruin it. Lose it. Or have it stolen.

"I'm leavin’ her with my friend Fame," Trixie says with a yawn. "She’s got a ranch up there in Reno. Plenty of space for her to run around, chickens to chase after.”

"You’re sweet," Katya smiles warmly. Lily licks at the sweat on Katya's face and it makes her laugh. Trixie does as well, though it is nearly inaudible. She’s been extra quiet this morning. Content. Her boss must be losing his mind right about this hour, if not earlier in the dark hours of the morning, while Trixie and Katya were still in bed.

It had been the easiest sleep she had in a while. There were no wet-eyed interruptions from Katya, either. In fact, Trixie was the one waking Katya, before Lily's yapping outside the door could offer a rude awakening.

Katya's laugh simmers down into a sigh. “Can I come with you?”

"You wanna go to a chicken ranch in Reno?” Trixie asks, dubious. Katya both nods and verbally confirms her assent, smiling wide. Trixie sets her mug down on the coffee table, the new home of the fashion magazines. She takes a second to confirm her earlier suspicions, then leans forward with her hands on her knees. “Why?”

Lily finally sits in Katya's lap and licks the soft fabric of her pajama pants, head coming to rest on Katya's knee. Katya _aww_ ’s, coos, and Trixie is sure she has lost most of Katya's attention to the dog. If not all of it.

"I like being with you," Katya says. Trixie is surprised and doesn't bother to hide it, as she looks Katya up and down. She sits back against the couch cushions, fiddles with the soft belt of her robe, loops it around her fingers. She clears her throat.

Trixie looks up to see Katya appearing to be on the verge of laughter, her eyebrows high up on her face and the right corner of her mouth raised. Trixie rolls her eyes and picks the coffee mug up again. She mutters nothing in particular and wonders briefly if Katya says these things just to get a rise out of her.

“We can’t really mess around at Fame’s," Trixie says, speaking into her sip. She's talking from experience. Memories of being kicked out half-naked in the night flash through her mind. "That house has got thin walls and that woman's got ears like a fuckin' owl.”

"We don’t have to," Katya shrugs, plays with Lily's floppy ears. She puts an arm around the dog to hug her gently and rests her head on Lily's.

Trixie smiles down at her. She wants a picture, wants to ask Katya where she keeps her camera, but she's content to stay right here, eating up the sight. She pats her thigh. “Come up here.”

“Why?” Katya pushes her lips into a pout, holds the dog tighter. Trixie is about to tell Katya to dial it back but she lets go without needing her warning and returns to petting it. Lily's tail wags against Katya's foot.

Trixie rolls her eyes again, at Katya's echo of her earlier question. She taps a finger to her cheek. “I wanna give you a big kiss.”

Katya laughs, jumps up with a squeal and sits down on Trixie’s lap. Her excitement sends Lily out of the room yapping, likely to curl up on the foot of Katya's bed. Trixie holds her mug out of the way and kisses Katya's cheek before kissing her on the lips, languidly. Katya's hands stroke down her chest, sifting underneath the material of the robe.

“Are you happy you played hooky?” Katya speaks into her bottom lip before sucking on it, then releases it with a hum. She pulls back to smile at Trixie and takes the mug out of her hand, sets it down with much less care than Trixie had shown for it.

“Yeah,” Trixie coils an arm around Katya’s waist, brings her other hand up to stroke her thumb over Katya’s eyebrow. “I’m very happy.”


	4. End of Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Trixie,” Katya says. It catches her off-guard, hearing her say her name. She is reminded of a phone call they had some time ago. Trixie doesn't remember the day or the month, she just remembers that Katya asked for her name in a dry, sexed-out voice that gutted her. When Trixie gave her an answer, she said in response _Beatrice is the prettiest name I've ever heard in my life _. Trixie agreed and talked her off again for being so sweet.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been holding onto this for months! i scrapped a lot of content and did some rewrites, and this is the final product. i missed these characters and this world too bad to stick to my ao3 hiatus. enjoy :)
> 
> warning: mentions of not eating and throwing up
> 
> talk to me @ friendofdolly on tumblr.

Katya has seen the big rig once, the night she and Trixie met. When she approaches it parked in the same spot at the truck plaza as last time, but with the sun shining down on the metal and making the truck-tractor glow bright and blinding, she loses her mind.

Trixie stands back and laughs as Katya squeals and races towards it, scrambles up the side-step and into the driver's side. Trixie jogs over to help her strap herself in and she laughs harder at Katya when she shoos her away to close the car door on her as if she's going to make a break for it.

Spurred on by Katya blasting the horn, she sticks her head in through the rolled-down window, points out the various parts that make up the dash. Katya traces over each component she touches. They spend far longer than they should in the parking lot going over how everything works. She doesn't think Katya is listening to a word she says, but she doesn't mind it.

  

Once she is pulling into Fame's dirt-road driveway, Trixie turns the volume down on the radio and looks over at Katya asleep in the passenger side. She smiles at the sight, before clearing her throat and saying Katya's name to wake her up. Lily wakes up as well, having fallen asleep curled up in her lap.

Surrounded by her precious flock of chickens, Fame is grinning wide, her hands in her skirt pockets as she stands in the middle of her field. Trixie puts the truck in park a couple yards away from the house and Fame approaches the rig, smacks the side of the hood fonder than she ever has in the past. Given that the previous times have been after Trixie's late night appearances at the diner, it is understandable.

Trixie jumps out and ignores Fame's gaze that turns knowing when she spots Katya in the truck. She swings the passenger door wide open and curls her fingers around Lily's middle and sets her down on the ground. She then wraps her hands around Katya's waist; delicate hands grip Trixie's shoulders and Katya giggles as she's set down on her feet.

Katya's hair frizzes in the heat in no time and she shields her eyes from the sun with her hand. Trixie peels her hat off and sets it on top of her hair, pulls at it and tightens the back strap until it is snug around her head.

"Who's the model?" Fame interrupts, sounding jovial. It is a far fetch from the last time Trixie saw her back in January. There is no doubt in her mind that the fresh face that is Katya's bare one and the excited bounce in Katya's feet as she stands next to her has everything to do with it.

"Katya," Trixie and Katya answer at the same time. Fame's fists are pushing into her slim waist as she regards the new woman. Her face is expectant, telling Trixie there is a sentence to be finished. Katya hums, leaving it up to her. Trixie sniffs. "A friend."

"And I'm the Queen of Sheba," Fame scoffs, then smiles at Katya. Trixie looks over to see the excited bounce is now absent. Fame beckons them to follow her as she begins to back away, navigating around the chickens that peck at the lush green grass under her bare feet. Lily avoids the animals in favor of sniffing the flower beds by the house.

Fame's long skirt swishes as she walks. She continues her address to Katya, though she is glaring at Trixie. "Call me Fame, alright? Let me show you around, Katya! I never get to do tours anymore. My partner's dramatic and reclusive tendencies tends to keep the visitor count low. That, and my big Brahma chicken Cletus. He likes to scare people off. Big T, one time even."

"I bet that was a laugh," Katya says, scratching down Trixie's thigh with a finger as they walk. Her face is unreadable and Trixie decides against attempts to figure out whatever she is thinking.

Trixie intended to leave her dog at the ranch with a simple goodbye and that be the sad end of that, but Fame loves Katya instantly, demands they spend a day or two here as she shows off the land to a fresh pair of eyes. It is as if Fame had never written Katya off as Las Vegas trash back in the diner. Trixie sees no reason to connect the dots for her friend, nor to let the woman believe she is some kind of matchmaker.

She stays silent, walks with soft arms squeezing around her bicep and jelly shoes crushing her feet every other step with how close Katya stays to her side. If the surprising enthusiasm for rambling tales of life on a chicken ranch tells her anything, it is that Katya feels the same immediate love for Fame. She isn't jealous. Only curious.

Trixie isn't reminded of the last time someone spent time with her and Katya. She takes comfort in not needing to say anything at all, what with the two other women doing all the talking. When Katya untangles her arms from Trixie's to catch up with Fame, who is pointing out an owl's nest in a tree in the wide backyard, Trixie falls behind.

She smiles to herself, turns around and heads into the house without a word. Neither Fame nor Katya notice her disappearance. Fame's home is both big on the outside and the inside, unlike Katya's compact one-story, though the decor resembles hers in that it is cluttered by knickknacks and mementos, but in a more familiar shade to Trixie than Buddhist iconography. Unlike her own house, it is spacious, but not empty.

The place is lived-in, the curtains she and her partner Willam sewed for every window breathe liveliness with their flutters from the gentle wind swaying in. Everything smells like musty old blankets and the sage Willam must have burned earlier.

Late-night card games, mornings spent inside reading during a rainstorm, and homemade dinners are all palpable in the atmosphere. She wanders through the rooms, feet dragging across the itchy carpet to worn-in wood then back to carpet again. She finally settles down in one of the old leather chairs in the living room.

It is strange to be here sober and well-rested. Or, as well-rested as she can be. Trixie can hear the two women she left earlier approaching the house, their voices dimmed by the walls. Trixie half-listens to Fame talking about the diner until she is interrupted by loud squawks from the chickens in the yard.

Fame mentions that there is indoor plumbing, dial-up internet, and cable television, rest assured. Katya laughs, says something Trixie cannot make out. She sits up on the couch at the sound of the door opening, having slumped down into it as she stretched her legs.

Katya follows Fame into the house until she reaches the stairs. Fame takes two steps up them then turns around, looks between Trixie sitting and Katya standing. The latter looks over at the former and gives her a small wave. Trixie returns it as if they hadn't just seen each other moments ago, because of the overarching truth of not having seen each other months ago.

Fame departs with a loud laugh at her own joke that Trixie is glad to be unable to hear as she hustles up the stairs, leaving the responsibility of entertaining Katya to Trixie in favor of taking a shower. Trixie stands up and walks over to Katya, who is leaning against the stair rail. She folds her arms over the volute and lays down her head. Trixie stands beside her and rubs Katya's back, listens as she starts to hum.

"She nice to you?" Trixie asks. Katya nods, her head still buried in her own arms. Trixie squeezes her shoulder. The sound of the shower running upstairs begins and a different door creaks open, telling Trixie that Willam has awakened. She drops her voice to a whisper. "You tired already, huh?"

"Are you leaving tomorrow or what?" Katya asks, her voice muffled. She raises her head, bringing strands of hair down across her face. Trixie tucks them back behind her ear and sighs through her nose. "Don't sigh at me. You said you had time off on the phone because of your hand, but then you said you'd have to go. You did this last time, too. It doesn’t make any sense."

"You don't need to worry about it, baby. I'm here now," Trixie counters, smiling though it doesn't reach her eyes. It is reassurance for Katya, but for herself as well. Her muscles tense underneath Trixie's palm and she retracts her hand, starts to ask what the matter is but closes her mouth when Katya's eyes bore hot into hers and she shrugs out of Trixie's touch.

"Don't tell me what to fucking worry about," Katya says, in a mean tone Trixie hasn't ever heard from her outside of the bedroom. Trixie stands dumb and stock-still as she brushes past her and storms right into the guest room. She slams the door behind her, making Trixie mutter under her breath and rub her temples as she hears Fame and Willam yelling at her in tandem.

 

Katya doesn't come out of the room. Trixie spends the greater half of the afternoon and evening sitting in the recliner that lets her stare at the door she slammed, watching the rays cast on the wood grains change from sunlight to moonlight. Willam has since come downstairs, her hair a bird's nest of blonde, and with a plush green bathrobe wrapped around her.

Fame is watching television on the couch, a rerun of _The Twilight Zone_. Willam smokes a cigarette as she makes a pot of chili. With every clang of the wooden spoon against the metal pot, Trixie is more and more convinced that she is imagining it is her skull. Compared to her relationship with Willam, Trixie and Fame are loving sisters. And at present, she is the one person on her side. It's throwing Trixie for a loop.

"You ought to talk to her, Big T," Fame says, during a commercial break. Her eyes are trained on the fuzz and crackle of the television. She waves towards Trixie and then waves at the guest door. Trixie frowns and looks down at her lap. Her hands have wrung themselves into a state of rubbed-raw pink skin, gauze around one of them providing no aid. "I don't know what the hell you're doing pissing the night away with me."

"She doesn't wanna talk to me," Trixie says. She's hunched over, with her knees knocked together and her feet turned in like a pigeon's. She usually fills up the chair with her size, but she looks small in it, with the awkward position. "It's why she's hidin' from me. You can't bother somebody into gettin' over a fight, Fame. She needs a lot of space, time to think. She's real inside her head."

Fame looks over at her like she's speaking in tongues. Trixie shrugs and trains her tired eyes on the door Katya is behind again.

"I think you're the one real inside your head. You're acting so different," Fame's voice drifts off as her show comes back on. It's thefirst-ever episode. Trixie's watched it a handful of times, spread out over the course of her life, from summers spent at her grandparent's house in Indiana to nights sitting on the edge of a hotel bed alone. She always forgets how it ends.

"This childish melodrama is bad for the _soooooul_ ," Willam sing-songs from the kitchen. Trixie groans and drops her head into her hands, mutters a slew of insults her way. 

"You can't talk about me like that!" Willam cries, waving her spoon around in the air. Chili flies off of it and onto the stove, the counters, the kitchen tiles. Trixie is grateful for the distance between her and the woman in a perpetual state of dramatics. "I'll kick you out! Your bratty little girlfriend too. I've had enough of the shit you always pull when you're here, Tracy."

"You can't talk aboutKatya like that," Trixie parries, but Fame sets her hand on her forearm and tells her with her eyes not to get into this with Willam.

"You'll drop that cigarette in the chili if you keep talking, Will," Fame says, monotonous. Trixie holds in a laugh, though it would have been a weak one. Fame leans in and drops her voice so only Trixie can hear her, whereas Willam's whining rolls through the whole house. "Get your act together. You're too old for this nonsense."

There is a sudden squeak of wood against wood and Trixie turns her head to see Katya slipping out of a cracked-open door. She doesn't look at Trixie, but rather at Fame, who tells her that there's dinner in the kitchen. Trixie's eyes scan over her countless times in the steps she takes to stand in front of Willam by the stove. Her face is pink and wet and her hair is tangled from sleep. The vision is too common for her liking.

"Nice of you to show your face," Willam pours her a bowl and hands it to her. Katya is half obscured by a vase stuffed full of sunflowers that is set on the kitchen island and Trixie stands up to see her better. She watches on from the living room, her arms and legs stiff. "It's a pretty one! I can see why that dirty old girl in there would just eat it up."

Katya takes a spoon that Willam offers with a smile aimed more at Trixie than it is at her and retreats back into the guest room without a word. Trixie withers when the door shuts again, quieter this time. Fame and Willam begin arguing over hospitality and Trixie heads upstairs, walking past the door.

She's chased out and onto the roof by the sound of the menacing theme song on the television being cranked up to drown out Willam's yelling. 

 

"I thought you left at first," Katya's voice cuts through the night, the sounds of gentle wind gusts that roll over the top of the flat roof. Trixie blinks out of her half-awake stupor, lifts her head from her reclined position on the deck to see Katya standing a few feet away, closing the roof hatch before walking over to her.

Trixie doesn't move her fingers from their interlocked position over her stomach. There are clear Christmas lights are wrapped around the banisters of the rooftop porch. The soft, low lighting makes Katya's hair glow pure white against the otherwise blackness of the outside.

"I thought you left when I was sleeping. I wasn't sure if it was a dream or not," Katya says, as she lies down beside her. Inches separate them, but Katya's warmth sears Trixie's exposed skin. Katya shifts closer to her and runs a finger down her arm. Trixie lets out the breath she was holding in. "Fame said this is your favorite spot here. It's nice."

"She has her moments," Trixie says, in mock degradation. She figures the women downstairs have tired themselves out by now, fell asleep in their bedroom and left Katya to walk around the seemingly empty house in a daze. "I suppose havin' this ranch built was one of them."

"How old is she now?" Katya asks after some silence has passed. Trixie doesn't need a name to know who she is talking about. Of course, Willam would do a tell-all about Trixie's life when she wasn't around to stop her. She's exhausted, opts not to spend energy getting angry wondering if Fame tried in Trixie's absence. She rubs her eyes and misses a shooting star overhead.

That Katya's anger has seemingly subsided is as worrying as when it was in full throttle. Trixie would rather be hated than pitied, would rather Katya have on her mind Trixie's recent mistakes than her past ones, let alone one she made when she was sixteen and stupider than she is now.

“Trixie,” Katya says. It catches her off-guard, hearing her say her name. She is reminded of a phone call they had some time ago. Trixie doesn't remember the day or the month, she just remembers that Katya asked for her name in a dry, sexed-out voice that gutted her. When Trixie gave her an answer, she said in response  _Beatrice is the prettiest name I've ever heard in my life_. Trixie agreed and talked her off again for being so sweet.

Katya curls an arm around hers and squeezes her, enough to hurt, make her grunt and her eyes open wide. She says her name again and Trixie's brought back fully to the cold night air. The wind blows harder than it has all night and Trixie shivers. Katya seems unaffected; she's so warm, always. Maybe she's spent so many years in the desert it's become part of her. 

"You know," Katya starts, then she stops. The sounds of chickens squawking and the dog barking all of a sudden down below makes her laugh, and she finishes her sentence. "I'm infertile."

"Oh," Trixie breathes. Katya lets go of her arm and she sits up, sets her hand down on Trixie's knee. She squeezes her gently. Trixie props herself up on her elbows, then wraps her hand around hers and squeezes back. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Katya."

Katya appears to understand the multiple layers of her apology. Trixie mistakes the quietness that settles between them to be the end of the conversation and she relaxes, but soon after Katya takes a deep breath and squeezes her hard again. Trixie's skin is going to be covered in bruises. More-so than it already was from last night.

"Do you want to be here more often?" Katya shakes her head. Why she would ask when she appears to have an answer in her head already confounds Trixie, too much to be annoyed, just enough to be a little scared of how this conversation is going to go. "Would you come around more, if you had the chance?”

“The company I work for has me by the balls. Daydreamin' about havin' more say than I already got does me no good," It's a bad answer. Evades the question. But she knows a good one, the one Katya wants to hear, would serve to complicate things further. Katya scoffs, looks away at the sparse line of trees to the right of the house. "And I barely have any say to begin with."

"Please just tell me, Trixie.”

"I hate Vegas. But I come around to see you," Trixie says, with a force that is meant to get her point across, not to silence Katya. Regardless Katya shrinks in on herself and Trixie presses closer to her, sweetens her tone as she repeats the sentiment.

"It doesn’t feel that way," Katya says, still staring at the trees. Some night owl, a neighbor of the one Fame pointed out earlier, hoots before it flies away, ruffling the leaves of the trees. Katya's eyes follow its path until the bird is out of sight, and she exhales with the next gust of the night wind. Trixie sits up all the way. "I always feel like you don’t want to be here. Like I don’t make up for anything at all.”

"Hey," Trixie is gentle when she clamps a hand around her shoulder. She leans forward to look at Katya, a silent plea to have her look back at her. "Hey. Come on, now. That ain't true.”

"What do you think of me?" Katya whips her head around. Her face is turning pink, her eyes becoming wet. Trixie wants to hold her and that be the end of it, of this, of what she knows will quickly become an argument. Fear rises at the thought of Katya shoving her away, and she keeps her distance, takes her hand off of Katya's shoulder. "What, what am I to you? I have to know. It’s driving me crazy.”

She doesn't know what she would say to herself, let alone to Katya. She is silent for seconds that she can tell are pure agony for Katya.

"You’re a nice girl," Her throat is dry and the words crackle out of her mouth. She coughs twice, then clears her throat. She can see Katya's heart breaking and Trixie thinks she is going to be sick. "But we can’t do much more than what we already are doin’.”

"I'm not good enough,” Katya's voice and eyes drift away and Trixie takes hold of her hands for fear of losing her to the strengthening breeze. Trixie is freezing, but she can't spot a goosebump on Katya's flesh. Trixie shakes her head _no_ vigorously and Katya digs her fingernails into Trixie's hands. Katya's eyes are wide, wild, and Trixie fights off the urge to recoil. “Then what? What, what is it? What is it?"

“You know what it is," Trixie takes in a deep breath through her nose. She can smell Katya, her scent without hair product and make-up, more sweat than perfume. She can smell the ranch too, its more rancid stench of animals, but the sage from inside the house is still so overwhelming. She couldn't guess what kind of sage it would be. She bets Katya would know; she fit in better here than Trixie has in the half a decade she's known Fame. Trixie wonders how she does it. "It’s me bein’ gone all the damn time. That’s what’s no good, Katya.”

"I wouldn’t care that you were gone all the time if I was your girl.”

“You are, just,” Trixie's head drops as does the rest of her argument. She doesn't know what to say, or what to think. She doesn't know anything.

“I'm just not the only one," Katya finishes for her. It comes like a right hook out of nowhere, what Katya says. How she looks after she says it. Trixie would have never expected this from her; a woman who embraces with a big smile her title as  _the Whore of New Age Babylon_. Monogamy. Trixie takes a moment to collect herself and realizes that Katya has removed her hands from Trixie's grip.

“Isn’t that true for the both of us?” Trixie asks, in a daze. Katya mouths a _No_ and shakes her head. "Oh.”

“I haven’t been with anyone since you were last here. Couldn't you tell?" Katya sees right through her, with her eyes so green and wide. "You did. I know you did."

“Katya,” Trixie groans, miserably. She drops her face into her hands and takes a deep breath. Her shoulders fall when a hand hesitantly curls around one of them.

“I like you a lot. I like you so much," Katya speaks so quietly Trixie could ignore her over the sound of the night owls. She doesn't, for whatever masochistic reason. Katya's voice raises, though it shakes, and it could - she could - break into pieces. Trixie prays the moment she does isn't as near as it seems to be. "I want to be with you. If you don’t want that, then whatever, fine. I needed you to know.”

Trixie doesn't speak. She doesn't look at Katya either, just pulls her knees to her chest and sets her crossed arms over them. She lets her face sink into the darkness of her arms and she wants to sink further into her body, exist in a space in which Katya cannot reach her. The rain gutters seem viable, old and dirty enough for her to blend right in.

She remembers the time she almost fell off a ladder in a drunken effort to clean them for Fame, years back. Simpler times. Better times, before Willam. Katya lets out a cold laugh next to her.

"Do you even like me?” Katya speaks through her laughter, her words broken and ranging in pitch. It is commendable to a degree, that she doesn't cry, but it mostly makes Trixie wish her hearing was gone. She unclenches her jaw when she realizes its tightened up to a painful degree.

“Clearly, I like you," Trixie keeps her voice steady for both of their sakes. Katya's eyebrows raise and a flicker of hope plays across her face before it dims into misery. She's smart. She knows what's coming. "This is childish, talkin’ about if we like each other.”

“You think it’s childish?” She looks at Trixie the way she's been looked at all her life, the way strangers do when she's unshaved and unwashed, still drunk from the night before. It's disgust. It shouldn't exist on Katya's face. Everything inside of Trixie's chest twists and drops.

She's seated but sticks out her hands to catch herself, victim to the fall she thought she was in the middle of. Katya wipes her face with her shirt sleeve and waits for Trixie to say something. She can't. She wants to roll off of the roof and crash down into the chicken coop below.

”My friends all told me I deserved better. That you were just using me for sex,” Katya says. Trixie can hear Raja saying those words, can hear her deep silken voice condemning her as smoke curls out of her mouth. She can hear Raja calling her redneck trash. Country bumpkin. Katya should've listened to her, blown Trixie off long ago. “I didn’t believe them."

Trixie’s never wanted a dramatic death before. Not even on her worst nights on the road, or when she was young at home with a wild man raising hell, not raising her. She had only ever wanted to die peacefully in her sleep. But she is longing for a painful one now.

Katya presses forward and gives her a hard but chaste kiss, cupping Trixie’s red cheeks before she pinches her ears between her fingers. Trixie lacks the time or sense to melt into it and Katya pulls away before she can.

“Goodnight, Trixie," Katya stands and wipes her face again. Trixie doubts she'll sleep at all tonight. "Please drive safe.” 

  

She drives safe as she heads towards the branch of the small dairy company she hauls for that is nearest to where she lives in Colorado. One town over. She was called to come in, figures she'll be fired for blowing off work one too many times. Only three times in her history, but that's three times too many for Ms. Milk's Dairy Corporation.

Maybe she'll quit before they can fire her. She'd like to see the look on the face of Milk herself if she were to do that. Maybe she will.

The drive is long and without a load to haul, she spends the drive meditating on the situation between her and Katya. Thoughts on the fight morph into thoughts on the job, focusing on the road. It always goes back to the job. Trixie admits to herself that she hates it, how it has consumed her like a disease.

She is thirty but she feels more akin to a forty-year-old. She's been trucking since she was eighteen, went from a scared childhood straight into a lonely adulthood. Her social life exists within the realms of the late-night, inside the walls of establishments that should have been condemned before she was born.

Trixie spots a truck stop up ahead and she remembers it as the one where she had been robbed years ago. In the parking lot, there is a big rig with gaudy yellow and black decals on the cab that she recognizes as an old friend's truck. She pulls into the parking lot and walks across the gravel to peer into the big windows of the diner, checking to see if he's there.

The bell rings when she opens the door and she earns a few nods as she walks in, as well as disparaging glances. Those are the usual greetings, she doesn't ask for more, if anything, she asks for less. If someone tries to pick a fight with her today, she isn't sure whether she'd curl into a ball on the ground or go red with rage. She doesn't want to find out either way.

She's well worn out in her youth, but there are men and women in this place with white hair and weak bones. Her eyes slip by them to settle on the man sitting by himself at the counter, in a Hawaiian print shirt and blue jean cut-offs. His Air Jordan's tap restlessly on the bar stool. He's just like she remembers him.

He doesn't look up from the newspaper he is reading when she sits on the bar stool next to him, but she doesn't need him to. She catches him eyeing her in his peripherals and she offers a weak wave. Her stomach grumbles, she didn't eat at all at the ranch and hasn't eaten since. Trixie only realizes that at the sound of bacon sizzling behind the counter, the smell of eggs frying. 

"Big fucking T," He says, half-smiling. He shakes his head and hums, flips the page of the newspaper. He is reading the Sunday comics section and runs his finger under the text bubble of what Archie is saying to Jughead.

"Bob. Long time, no see brother."

Bob _mhms_ and keeps his eyes down on the newspaper. Trixie folds her arms on the counter and rests her head on them, and she only raises it when a waitress comes over and asks if she wants any coffee. A minute of amicable silence rolls by and the waitress sets a mug of coffee down for Trixie. It smells stale and Bob chuckles when Trixie's jaw twitches as she sips at it.

"So what is it you want to talk about?" Bob asks, finally looking up at her. She's grateful he knows already, that he cuts to the chase. His eyes sport the same ever-present red strings in the whites of them, but they aren't so deep-set and wrinkled at the corners like Trixie's are. He is wearing different eyeglasses than the last time she saw him, ones with bright red, circular rims.

He's trendy. A man of the 90s, like how Katya is a woman of the 90s. Trixie pushes the thought of Katya aside to focus on her friend. She's never understood why Bob hauls instead of doing something thoughtful, something artistic. But she's too far gone at the moment to give him shit for it.

"Tryin' not to hate this line of work," She says. She's serious, perhaps more than she has ever been around Bob over the years they have known each other. She shifts on the stool and clears her throat, almost regrets adding a layer of uncomfortable tension to the encounter. Bob acts like it is nonexistent. "I'm frazzled. Desperate. Lost."

"I don't know if I can assist you on that one, sister. You hate it? Quit trucking.”

Trixie laughs without humor before digging her teeth into her lip and shaking her head. Bob scoffs, knocks her knee with his.

“Quit trucking!" He urges, eyes bugging behind his glasses. "I'm serious. You’re what, almost thirty? Over thirty? You have a house, but you’re only half settled. Get a job that’ll let you settle the whole way down.”

“I ain’t smart, Bobby," She says quickly, in a near whisper as she leans in close to him. There's a trickle of paranoia creeping in, she feels everyone's eyes on her like they can see how not-smart she is, like they can see that she's hurt someone because of it. “Truckin’ is the only thing I know how to do. I don't have anythin' else.”

Bob stares at her for a good couple of seconds before he pulls her in for a hug. It should be awkward, with their positions on the stools, and being in the middle of a truck stop diner. She doesn't care, just collapses into his chest as he rubs circles over her back. She doesn't cry, but he whispers soothing words to her anyway, quiets her phantom sobs that are lodged in her tight chest.

“You ain’t a dumbass, girl," He says, in a soft voice that slips gently into her ear. She hadn't realized her breaths were coming in and out short, but they even out in his embrace. "You only act like one. You can figure something out. Where is she?”

“What?” Trixie asks, her cheek squished against his shoulder. She pulls back and he is smiling at her again, and his smile only grows wider when the waitress comes back and Trixie pries her eyes off of him to order biscuits and gravy. He teases her about never ordering anything else and she almost laughs for real this time, and she tells him to hush up.

“There’s a woman, right?" Bob says. He props his chin up on a fist and his eyes narrow in concern. "Where is she?”

“Vegas.”

“Christ," Bob spins back to face the counter and returns to his comics. She appreciates the casualness as she rubs her biceps where his warm touch still lingers. "Get her the hell out of that place.”

“It’ll never work out," Trixie says. Bob rolls his eyes and waves his hands in dismissal at her that's-the-end-of-that tone. "No, it won't. I wouldn't joke about this. It'll never work."

“Why not?”

“Why not,” Trixie repeats him, tacking on a scoff at the end. She crosses her arms over the counter and drops her head down again, repeats it to herself in a whisper, into the meat of her bicep. She breathes in her own sweat, then wipes her nose and draws herself back into the world. “You know why not.”

"I don't think I do," Bob folds his newspaper closed and leans in, eyes her up. He can see plain as day the pain that is screwing up in her face and tensing up her muscles. He gasps. "Has my Trixanthemum finally shed herself of the ice around her heart? _Please_ , tell me about this queen that has defeated the evil dragon."

“She’s a starlet," Trixie says, simply. She draws circles on the countertop with her fingernail until her food is set before her. She stares down at the plate. "She dances. And she's real good at it. Real pretty and sweet. Everyone loves her, she’ll never leave. Besides, she’s got a house there, and friends. Her life’s too interestin' and fast-paced to live with me. I don’t even have a life.”

“Snap out of that," Bob says. He points at her fork and knife, tells her not to say anything more, to just eat up, and she does. Trixie feels her restlessness quieting as she eats, and she swallows down bites of biscuit greedily. Bob goes to the bathroom and comes back to her eating a second helping and he claps his hands, sits down with another smile, even gets one in return from Trixie.

“Last night, she said she wanted to be in a relationship. I got scared and told her no because of my job. If I quit and moved to Vegas,” Trixie starts, before looking over at him, gauging his reaction. He nods and she allows herself to seek someone else's approval without feeling disgusted this one time. "I could mend things between us."

“That’s a start," He says, warmly. Trixie closes her eyes and wraps herself up in his warmth, unsure of when she'll see him next, or if she ever will again. "Lots of construction jobs there. But I stand by you getting her out of that awful fucking snake pit. She'll get bit. If she hasn't been already.”

 

Trixie watches the truck stop disappear in her rearview mirror and decides then and there that she doesn't want to step foot in another truck stop ever again. But she has nobody like Fame or Katya in the town where the company branch is. Even if she did, she wouldn't want to shack up with them, so she finds herself checking into a bed and breakfast. 

The place is honeymoon themed, with her room sporting pink and white striped wallpaper and plush red carpeting. The bed is in the shape of a heart, the color of red, and it is stiff as a board. Pillows cover half of it and they are in the shape of arrows, she supposes they are meant to be Cupid's. Framed pictures of the naked baby with angel wings line the four walls.

She sits on the right side curve of the bed and stares at her hands, grease-covered from having to check the engine. Her truck decided to give up on her as she was parking outside the bed and breakfast. Trixie can't fault the rig, can only relate to it, and she is thankful that it chose a halfway decent place to call it quits.

It begins raining outside the pink framed window, first in a sprinkle then in a pelting. Lighting flashes, illuminating the room that is glowing a soft pink from the colored lights. She's developing a headache. Perhaps a stomachache as well.

Thunder roars, drowning out the sound of the clerks chatting at the front desk right outside, two women that put on little screams at every rumble from the storm. She stares at the red, puckering lips shaped phone on the nightstand, placed next to a framed cross-stitching that wishes whatever couple stays in the suite a happy stay. She could cry. Katya would love this place.

Trixie takes a count of five even breaths before dialing Katya's number. She doesn't pick up and Trixie doesn't call her again until days later, still without a working truck, at half past two in the morning her time, half past three in the morning Nevada time. Trixie breathes out her name upon hearing a questioning _Hello?_ and then the line is silent.

"What do you want," Katya says more than asks. It sounds like there's a party going on at her house. There are loud indistinct voices in the background, shouting and laughter. A Prince song is playing. Trixie sits up straight and holds the phone tight against her ear.

"I want to talk to you," Trixie says. She scratches her cheek over and over, runs her nails over the growing stubble. She hasn't shaved since she left Reno and has no plans to anytime soon. "I need to say I'm sorry. But I don't want to do it like this. Can I come see you, baby?"

"Don't baby me. You know, I never do this," She laughs humorlessly and Trixie listens, helpless, as she begins to cry. "I've never done it. And the one time. The one time I do..."

Katya drifts off and before Trixie has time to respond, Katya hangs up on her. Trixie whimpers a pained _Dammit!_ before dialing her again.

"Please, please, please, please pick up," Trixie's bouncing in place and her arm is curled around her stomach. She threw up last night and is going to have to pay a charge. She might tell the owners to fuck off, that the place needs some other color other than pink. Katya answers on the very last ring. "Katya. Please. I fucked up and I'm sorry. We need to talk."

"There isn't a _we_!" Katya's voice raises and the background voices simmer down. A door shuts on Katya's end and her voice lowers. "You made sure I knew that."

"I know you still want us to be somethin'," Trixie pleads. The thunder and lighting outside turn relentless, blinding flashes through her window every few seconds and deafening cracks that shake the building. The framed cross-stitching falls off of the nightstand, its glass cover shattering. Bits of glass graze her feet, but she doesn't register the pain. "What if I do too?"

"If? _If_?" Her voice rises again and the door reopens. Raja's voice emerges, quiet but clear, asking her what is going on. Katya ignores her and stays a rival to the storm outside. "An if isn't good enough! I'm supposed to put all my weight on an if?" 

"I haven't done this in so long," Trixie's voice breaks, the air sucked out of her. She hears Katya go quiet on the line. "I haven't. If you think. If you think might be carin' about me real good, I need you to understand I haven't had anybody feel like that about me in a long time. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what to do with myself when I feel the same. It's such a fragile thing, Katya."

"It's not fragile with me," Katya's yelling pitfalls into gentleness, a voice that wouldn't wake a baby. The door on her end closes one final time and Trixie hears the music stop, but she sounds alone now. Trixie imagines her room; all of her things set up in an order Trixie couldn't understand, the soft covers of her bed, the mirrors on the walls.

"Are you sure?" Trixie asks. She sounds so much younger, confuses herself for a moment at her childlike way of speaking.

"I'm sure," Katya sighs. There is a long space of quiet, filled only with their breaths. Katya clears her throat. "I've been sure. You're the one who needs to figure yourself out."

"I know," Trixie wipes her hand across her eyes. "It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but. If you can give me some time, I want to learn."

The thunder calms down, becoming more of a distant murmur. The lightning eases up as well, the flashes acting less and less like strobe lights. But her headache remains and the sickness in her stomach is still gripping her tightly. She'll probably throw up again after the phone call.

"You need to learn on your own time. Like I did," Katya says, soft and tired. She doesn't sound in the mood for a party. Trixie wonders why she'd throw one at all. "Don't call me again until you know exactly what it is that you want. Goodbye, Big T."


	5. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Feng shui,” Katya corrects, enunciating over the music. She leans her head back against the headrest. Trixie continues beating the hell out of the glovebox. “It’s about the harmony of energy, Tricky, and my lip glosses bring me that, so.”
> 
> Trixie finally gets it to shut and says a quiet _You're Welcome_ to Katya's soft _Thanks_. Katya starts drumming the bassline on the steering wheel as she turns it, her grip on red velvet somehow firm with sweaty, glittery hands. She's operating the pedals in a pair of cheap flip-flops that Trixie last saw on her at the Monte Carlo pool, back when she was more than welcome to stay the night with her.
> 
> “Whatever you say, Katya," Trixie says, after a sigh. Katya grins at her, teeth tinted pink by the stoplight shining on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a more upbeat/slighty chaotic chapter, after the trials and tribulations of the last. i hadn't touched this in a while, but i needed a break from writing miserable souvenirs and ended up here again...i missed these problematic and complicated Women.
> 
> [also shout out to trixie for posting This.](https://www.instagram.com/p/BpV7N0Mg65E/?taken-by=trixiemattel)
> 
> enjoy!

Trixie sets the phone back on its bottom-lip-shaped cradle in a dreary haze. She sits unmoving on the bed. She listens to wrathful thunderclaps in silence until the storm outside has its death. The lack of rain pattering against the window reminds her that she hasn't showered in days.

She strips down and wanders into the shower, leans all her weight against the cool tiles as lukewarm water rolls down her body. Her eyes tear up and she lets out one frustrated sob as she rips the wax paper off a soap bar. She lathers herself in generic fruit scented foam, taking the most indulgent shower that she has had in years.

Afterward, she stumbles back into the bedroom and gets under stiff sheets that smell like cheap laundry fragrance. She pit-falls into a deep, fitful sleep. She awakes sometime before noon and phones her supervisor as she has every day that she's been without a working rig.

All she wants is the company to send over a tow-truck, but her supervisor speaks in circles around her questions and talks over her, berating Trixie like she's a child. She imagines the meeting she's supposed to have in his office, how it'll be more of this but in her face. It sends her deeper and deeper into a quiet rage that unnerves herself.

Before she can second-guess herself, she quits the job she’s had since she was eighteen, over the phone, standing in her dirty underwear in her room at a bed and breakfast in the same town as her company's branch. She hangs up and calls a taxi before checking out of the place that is sure to be the setting of her nightmares.

She goes home. When she gets there she eats lunch that consists of a sandwich with stale bread and a beer, then goes back to sleep. She decides the first step in bettering herself is making up for all the hours of rest taken from her in her years hauling.

 

 

_Don't call me again until you know exactly what it is that you want._

It takes her until the middle of August, but she finds out through rigorous self-reflection brought on by mental-probing over pot and coffee with her neighbor Jinkx, self-help books from the local library, and a lot of jerking off about Katya that what she wants stability.

She has only ever possessed scraps of it. Trixie had a big family growing up but watched it break apart into little pieces before she reached puberty. She had the same job for over a decade but hated every second of it. She has a home, but she was left by the woman she was going to share it with.

She wants Katya, but above all, she wants Katya to be happy. In all the times she's seen her or listened to her over the phone, there had always been a trickle of sadness when she wanted Trixie to think she was completely fine, and then a downpour when she wanted her to know that she wasn't.

One hot night she wakes up in a cold sweat, having dreamt the crazy-ass Heaven's Gate people were right; the Hale-Bopp comet was indeed hiding a UFO, and it landed, invaded Las Vegas. Trixie decides to hell with it. She tries calling Katya, but it goes to voicemail, and she leaves a message saying simply that she's coming to town. She packs a bag and leaves Jinkx a note on her door, and she hits the road.

 

 

The sun set two hours ago and the night air is chilly all around her, brisk wind rolling through the barren lands of Nevada, kicking up dust and smacking the red powder onto her jeans.

Midway between Mesquite and Vegas she pulled off the road to take a leak, dark desert nothingness illuminated by the headlights of her used ’87 Volvo station wagon. She bought it not long after returning home. It's not much of a pussy wagon, but she finds she doesn't give a shit, which is something she would've balked at before.

The stars are pretty here, just out of range of polluted air and glowing neon, and they hang high above. The constellations are so clear, but she can barely make out the shapes of the towering mountains that enclose the sin city. It dawns on her now, the irony of it.

The Ten Commandments were given to Moses on a mountain. Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. Mountains are holy things, close to the Heavens. There's very little in Vegas that is holy. Katya's about all they got.

All of a sudden she hears a rattle. The sound is akin to a baby's toy, but it resonates deep in her chest and she stops the rest of her piss stream. She drops her eyes to the ground and sees a rattlesnake is curling up beside her foot. Trixie bites back a yelp and stuffs herself back into her pants.

She backs up slowly into the middle of the road. The snake slithers towards her, circling around her and sliding over the toe of one of her boots. There's a rustle behind her and a second later Trixie sees a jackrabbit dashing across the road. The snake forgets her and slithers after it, disappearing into the blackness.

Trixie releases the tight breath she's been holding in her chest and retreats into her car, drives faster than she should for a mile before calming down to the sounds of Pink Floyd. She'll use the bathroom at the hotel she's checking into.

 

  
   
Rain in the Desert is worse than she remembers. The red lights are bloodier and the white ones that pulse to the rhythm of the music are more blinding. The sound of artificial rain is distorted, sounding more like harsh white noise. Debbie Harry's voice is warbling at a deafening volume and Trixie walks around with her middle fingers in her ears.

She's looking straight up to the red cage hanging above, but there are no flashes of shimmying red within. Trixie shifts through the pulsing crowd to get a better vantage point, but there’s still no sign of Katya.

From what she remembers of Katya talking about her less than rigid schedule, she should probably be on her way to the cage, this time of night. Or she could be on the floor. Or not even working. Trixie figures it's worth a shot to roam the dance floor a little while.

In a matter of minutes, she's sweating through her raglan shirt and has to get a cold beer at the bar to keep from overheating. She's sipping on the drink when the music comes to a standstill. Trixie expects there to be a cacophony of angry yells, but there's excited babbles among the crowd. A few cheers as well. Her rising suspicions are confirmed by the slow R&B beats of an En Vogue song beginning to play.

Katya appears out of nowhere, ascending the red stairs leading up to the stage with a security guard holding her hand. It's not the same guy that Trixie vaguely recalls. She's wearing the same red kaftan as the first time Trixie ever saw her, but she's wearing something shiny underneath, latex, perhaps.

Trixie almost smiles at the thought of Katya covering herself in protest of the advertisements proclaiming Rain is the only nightclub featuring topless dancing in the city. Katya looks different too, but the distance and the lighting make it hard for Trixie to figure out how.

Katya exits the cage to walk around the edge of it, running her hand over the bars. She drops her kaftan down to another guard below and it sinks in slow motion, floating down serenely as it does in Trixie's dreams. Katya is indeed wearing latex, the material clings onto her in the form of a strapless blue tube dress. Something is around her neck, a choker maybe, it's hard to tell.

She sways her hips side to side to the rhythm and digs her fingers into her hair. Trixie is rooted to her spot. She feels the chill of this past January wrapping scraping over her skin and freezing her insides.

On the edge of the cage, Katya does a curtsey but one of her feet kicks out and she wobbles on the ledge. It's January now more than ever, with chills jittering down her spine in response to déjà vécu. Trixie knocks down the man in front of her to surge forward, but Katya catches herself, her grip keeping her upright. Her mouth moves in a laugh, though it’s inaudible, and the crowd laughs along too, their worries assuaged when she does another bow and reenters the cage. She's escorted out of it.

Trixie’s heart isn’t close to calming down from its chest-bursting rate when someone in front of yells at her and throws their fist into her eye. She cranes her neck down from where it jerked back to look at her assailant, presumably the same man she knocked over, from the looks of his drink-stained t-shirt.

He’s still yelling at her when she shoves him away by the face and shuffles through the crowd to move towards the cage’s staircase. Katya’s likely been escorted down to the floor by now, so Trixie scans the room for blue latex. Someone grabs her arm and Trixie jerks her shoulder to shake them off, but they grab her again.

She whips her head around to tell them to back off, _please_ , but her words die in her throat. Raja is standing there, in ripped jeans and a black ruffle blouse, her hair electric blue. Briefly, Trixie wonders if she's quit her job here. Her clothes don't exactly scream snake dancer.

"Big T? What are you doing here?” Raja asks. It isn’t cold as she would have expected. She sounds completely in shock.

"I wanna make things right,” Trixie replies. Raja cranes her head, visibly considering her response.

“I couldn’t tell you what she’s thinking,” Raja says, shrugging. "We're not friends anymore."

Trixie's shoulders sink and she shakes her head in sympathy. "Oh, Raja—"

"When she told you to get your shit together it must've clicked that she needed to, as well. She went out to 'find herself' in Malibu for a spell and she found a new girl to hang with. I think it's good for her, some change. I could never help her anyway. But she's still working here, so I guess she hasn't moved on from it all."

"I'm sorry for being a dick," Trixie says, urgently. "I mean it. To you, to Katya—" Raja holds up a palm, silencing Trixie.

"You're wasting time. Go get her. Maybe she still has a place for you," she says. Trixie nods and starts back on her search. "She’s not on the dance floor, she'll be in the dressing room! All the way to the left!”

Trixie's powered through a group of dancing couples before Raja calls out her name.

"And get some ice for that eye, dumbass!"

 

 

Trixie has to give the security guard a twenty, but she gets in the dressing room.

The smells inside go straight to Trixie's head, her temples aching as the strong stench of weed rolls together with plumey cigarette smoke and hairspray, perfume and body odor. The undeniable ripe stench of sex is present too.

She meets Katya's eyes in a vanity mirror and they've never looked bigger and brighter. Trixie's own are aching from the red, pulsing lights of the club, but the dressing room is dimly lit in white fluorescence, save for the yellow bulbs surrounding Katya in a halo as she sits before the round mirror. The lights flicker noncommittally like candles, casting a warm glow on Katya's hair and sweaty skin.

She's grown out her bangs and her curls are tamer with the length of her hair. It is tied half-up with a pretty blue ribbon and the wave of affection coursing through Trixie feels powerful enough to drown her, or at least buckle her knees. Katya's skin looks clearer now, too. The acne on her jawline is gone, as well as any traces of sunburn.

Katya is wearing less makeup, silver eyeshadow on her eyelids and a soft pink color staining her lips where she hasn't reapplied her lipgloss. She looks softer than Trixie remembers, with more fat on her bones. She doesn't turn around in her chair or move a muscle. She keeps Trixie's gaze in the mirror, watches her shoulders slump and her confidence sink into her stomach to be twisted into nerves.

“I quit my job," Trixie says, after the stretch of silence eats far too much of her strength away.

“What?” Katya asks. Trixie's eyes slip close and she relishes the sound of her voice. She opens them and is subject to Katya's fiery gaze. She's gripping onto the edge of the vanity and Trixie wants to peel her fingers off of it and let them relax, interlock them with hers.

“I quit my job," she repeats. "I started workin' on construction sites close to my house. And I can do that anywhere. Stay in one place for a while. But I do wanna find somethin' more steady, that pays as well as haulin' did and—”

“Trixie...” Katya starts.

“If nothin' else, I’d like to end this on a good note between us. You don’t owe me that, but," her voice warbles as she starts to cry. "I hate that you think I don't give a damn. And I just want you to know that you bein' happy and healthy is somethin' I need to see for myself. If you could just tell me that you're doin' good or tell me what to do if you're not—"

" _Trixie_ ," Katya's voice has softened into something that wraps around her chest tight and she quiets down so she can hear the rest of what she has to say. Katya turns around in her chair and extends her arm, offering her hand. "Come here."

Trixie takes tentative steps across the room and stops before Katya, standing until her chest stops heaving. She grips Katya’s hand between both of hers and collapses to her knees. She wraps her arms around Katya as she buries her head in her stomach, buries her flowing tears in the warmth and softness of her belly. Her knees dig into the cold hardness of the floor as her sobs wrack her body.

Katya murmurs while she cries. Trixie pulls back eventually and stares up at Katya, who brings her fingers to Trixie’s face, runs her hand through the hairs of the beard she's grown out. She pulls at it, not enough to hurt. Her eyes warm up, skin crinkling at the edges.

”This is new,” Katya's tone is gentle. “Softer than you'd think.”

"Beard oil,” Trixie manages.

“You take care of yourself now,” Katya states. Trixie nods and swallows down the lump in her throat. "I see you got clocked in the face, though."

"Are you taking care of yourself? You look good,” Trixie says. Katya pulls on her beard again, a little harder this time. She strokes down her bruising cheek and pulls her hands away, settles them in her lap. Trixie takes steadying breaths and waits until she's sure she'll sound normal. "I want us to be together like you said. What we were, but more."

"What we were? We were a mess," Katya says, quietly. Trixie falls all over; her face, her shoulders, her stomach. She’s still holding onto Katya, it’s all that keeps her from falling over out of shame. "I never had you."

"You do now. I’m all yours, sweetheart," Trixie says. Katya doesn’t meet her eyes. Instead, she looks to the makeup covering the vanity and up to the mirror.

"We have so much we need to talk about," Katya's heavy tone makes Trixie’s stomach sink further. Katya's eyes are on her again. Trixie nods and wishes her head was still cradled in Katya's soft hands.

"I want you to know I'm sorry. I want to talk it all out, I do. I want to make this work. I believe that it can, now."

Katya studies her, eyes squinting before they soften.

"Did you see a therapist?" she asks. It is not accusatory nor dubious, but understanding. Trixie tells her no, that she read self-help books. "And that helped?”

"Those quacks helped me realize a thing or two,” Trixie shrugs. Katya rolls her eyes, but her face falls back into a concerned state quickly. Trixie clears her throat. "Yeah. Yeah, it helped. Not as much as I thought it might. I'm still an old bastard, but it's good to... Feel my feelings. And talk about them. I get that now."

Katya starts to laugh. Trixie freezes, not having expected to hear that sound. She leans back, just far enough so she doesn’t kiss her.

"What?" Trixie asks, smiling a little.

"Just the way you say things,” Katya replies, shaking her head. One of her fingers strokes over Trixie’s knuckles. "Old bastard."

Trixie cracks a full grin and settles more into her place kneeled before Katya. "Is there somewhere less crazy where you can laugh at me? Could we go home and talk?"

Katya rubs a knuckle over Trixie's and pouts. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Okay," Trixie breathes. "That's alright. We can meet somewhere."

Katya nods. "I have to work tomorrow. Call me the day after that, I'll be home."

They share a quiet moment, amidst the music thumping behind the door. They're the only ones in the dressing room. The haze of smoke hasn't cleared out and Trixie gets the idea that it's ever-present. Katya hasn't stopped glowing under the softness of the lights.

"Well..." Trixie trails off, hesitating. Katya gives another encouraging nod and Trixie rises to her feet. "I'll see you then."

 

  
   
She's left through the employee exit Katya told her about. She's smoking and feels something plop onto her head. She looks up at the sky with a scowl on her face, expecting a bird flying overhead, but is greeted by water drops splattering across her face. It's rainfall. She walks through the alley in a stupor to stand outside the club's entrance, where a crowd is gathering.

A handful of Rain's clubgoers have burst out of the front doors to join those already in the rain, whooping and screaming at the novelty, drunkenly dancing and slipping around on the wet pavement. She's weighing her options of walking back to her motel or hailing a cab when Katya comes out, eyes to the sky, one of her hands rising to touch the raindrops before they touch her.

Trixie gets knocked around in her hypnotized state by a group of screaming girls running towards a cab pulling up to the curb. The rain is falling harder and harder.

Everyone else is running for cover but Katya starts to laugh. She turns, wobbling in her shoes, and locks eyes with Trixie. Her laughter calms down but her eyes remain amused. A small smile stays on her lips. Her makeup is streaking down her face and her hair is flattening, sticking to her head. Her latex dress allows the water to run right off, but she should be miserable in the cold, pelting water. She looks delighted.

"It's a sign!" Katya calls out to her. Trixie tries not to slip and tumble as she makes her way over. Katya meets her halfway and grabs her biceps to steady her, saving her from falling on her ass. She moves her hands to Trixie's forearms, digging her fingers into her flesh.

"How often does this happen?" Trixie asks, eyes blinking non-stop to be able to see. Katya's pinching her eyes shut, shielding them from the eyeliner deadset path into her eyes. Trixie would help, but Katya's grip on her is unrelenting. Her mood's changed with the weather, but not in the way Trixie would ever envision rain could make a woman feel.

"Never! Never ever-ever!" she shakes her head, sending raindrops flying off strands of her hair. "Come on, I'll drive you. Where are you staying?"

 

 

“You a Catholic now?” Trixie asks.

“You’re referring to these?” Katya swats at the prayer beads hanging around the rearview mirror, sending them into a warped pendulum swing. Trixie stills them before they can come back to hit either of the women. Katya acknowledges this with a hum around her cigarette and nothing further. “I used to be when I was a little girl. I keep them around, they’re like. Um. Feng shui,” Katya nods to herself.

"Okay," Trixie says, because she doesn't know what Katya is talking about.

“I am all about the feng shui movement now. My house is so different. Oh my God!” Trixie immediately looks to the road, thinking a car is in front of them, but there’s nothing, only Katya flapping her gums, “You saw how messy it was, but I’ve cleared it all out,” she sounds pleased with herself, then starts to laugh, her nose crinkling. “I think I accidentally threw away some important things in the mix. It’s totally unconventional.”

“I bet it is," Trixie says, feeling more at ease than she has all night, after hearing her laugh this much for the first time in months. Katya looks over at her and gives her a pretty smile. Trixie rubs her fingers over her own lips in contentment but then reaches over, gently turns Katya’s head forward by her jaw. “Eyes on the road.”

Katya rolls her eyes. "As if dying beside me in a blaze of glory would be so drab."

It's hot inside the car with the A/C blowing them dry. The rain has let up some, but not much, and the windshield wipers squeak with every swipe. Katya twists the knobs on the radio, turning down the volume to change the channel from oldies to the college station. She turns the volume back up again. 

"Naw, I guess not," Trixie reasons, after thinking on it for a moment. The cigarette in Katya's hand teeters between her slender fingers and Trixie glances over to see her smug expression reshape into something puzzled, but softer. Trixie dabs her finger on the spot of cigarette ash that sprinkles down by Katya's thigh and brings it up to her tongue.

Katya's lips purse and she sighs through her nose.

"You're making this very tricky for me— Oh!" Katya giggles, throws a hand at Trixie's bicep and latches on, squeezing it hard. "Tricky Trixie. That is _exactly_ what you are. Since you're staying here for however long, you'll see when you come over. I mean,” Katya lets go, smiles at her in the rearview mirror and shrugs, shakes her head a little so her soaked curls dance. “It's inevitable that I'm going to fuck you again. Not anytime soon, though.”

Trixie swallows down a sound and nods. The top of her head grazes the roof of the car and she hunkers down further, trying to fold herself into a comfortable position in Katya's mini-model of a car. She remembered it being _kind of_ small, but she also remembers being in another dimension the last time she was in this thing.

"Feel free to refamiliarize yourself with the car. We weren't exactly ab-stem-ious whenever you were in here, like, before," Katya says, reading her mind.

Trixie chuckles. Katya appears to wait as long as she seems appropriate, which is a couple of seconds before her eyes widen in the mirror. Trixie then understands that it wasn’t a suggestion in passing. She pulls the handle. The glovebox drops open. Lip gloss tubes pour out in a waterfall, bouncing off of Trixie’s boots and onto the car floor. Katya shrieks.

“My glosses!”

Trixie gropes around the dark floor to gather them up and stuffs the handful of them back into the glovebox. She attempts to shove it closed with her knee. The door catches on the tubes that stick out, and she keeps on banging it until they fall further into the glovebox. The car slows, but Katya seems to be paying more attention to the road. Trixie grits her teeth, feeling her skin bruising.

“This ain't fang shui at all," she mutters under her breath. 

“Feng shui,” Katya corrects, enunciating over the music. She leans her head back against the headrest. Trixie continues beating the hell out of the glovebox. “It’s about the harmony of energy, Tricky, and my lip glosses bring me that, so.”

Trixie finally gets it to shut and says a quiet _You're Welcome_ to Katya's soft _Thanks_. They sit in silence, listening to Beck on the radio.

Katya starts drumming the bassline on the steering wheel as she turns it, her grip on red velvet somehow firm with sweaty, glittery hands. She's operating the pedals in a pair of cheap flip-flops that Trixie last saw on her at the Monte Carlo pool, back when she was more than welcome to stay the night with her.

“Whatever you say, Katya," Trixie says, after a sigh. Katya grins at her, teeth tinted pink by the stoplight shining on them.

She waves a hand wildly by Trixie’s knee. “Wait, wait, wait, don’t close it! Pick out one.”

Trixie falls heavy against the car seat, staring in disbelief at Katya, who looks over at her with raised eyebrows and sucked-in lips, expectant. Trixie shakes her head and yanks it open. Nothing falls out this time, to her surprise. She pulls a tube out at random. Katya glances at it, and upon seeing the flavor, she snorts and faces the road ahead again.

“Good choice,” Katya motions with her finger to Trixie to lean in close. She does, and Katya's breath tickles her ear. “I like to put that one on my pussy.”

She laughs at her own joke and Trixie joins her, drops the lipgloss back into the glovebox and leaves it partway open, in case Katya demands something else. Katya drops her cigarette butt into an empty coffee mug in the cupholders between them.

"So I've decided that we're going to be friends, Trixie," she glances over at her twice, "What do you think?"

"I like that," Trixie says immediately, and then because Katya looks a little doubtful, she says, "I want that. More than anythin'."

"Good." Katya flicks her eyes back to the road and stares ahead. She reaches over to give Trixie's bruised knee two squeezes.

"You're such a woman," Trixie says, hushed, before she can think twice about it. Katya laughs, takes her hand off of her knee.

"Thanks for reminding me."

"We all need remindin', sometimes. Thanks for every time you reminded me." 

Katya meets her eyes in the rearview mirror and her expression is familiar, one Trixie remembers seeing all the times before she ruined the moment by doing something shitty.

 

 

Trixie didn't realize she dozed off until Katya is shaking her shoulder. They're parked in front of the hotel she's staying at indefinitely.

"How long had you been awake?" Katya asks softly. It's darker outside where there isn't the neon of the strip and Katya's turned the inside car lights on. Her hair is somewhat dried and all over the place because of it. She's attempting to tame her curls with her free hand. Trixie catches a whiff of sweat off of her and she's lost in knowing what she smells like behind the ears; natural, womanly.

"Too long," Trixie groans, rubs her aching forehead. Katya rubs the soft and damp material of her shirt between her fingers. "Been a while since I've been awake for... A while."

Katya hums and peers up at the hotel through the water-streaked windshield. She cringes, turns the radio volume all the way down. She must've lowered it while Trixie was asleep.

"La Quinta Inn," she reads, warily. "Oh my God. You're staying here? This is somehow worse than the truck plaza. And that place was so fucking gross."

"Shoot, ain't nothin' worse than a truck stop. I got room service here, it's heaven to me."

Trixie unbuckles her seatbelt and starts to say goodbye but Katya unbuckles hers too, turns off the car and gets out of it. Trixie follows her out and blinks at her in surprise. 

Katya waves a hand around in dismissal. "I'm a lady, I'm going to walk you up."

She does just that and fusses over the quality of the hotel outside of Trixie's door until they're suddenly quiet once more, standing alone in the hallway. Trixie hadn't forgotten how short Katya is, how small and sweet she looks, but it's exhilarating to be looking down into her eyes again.

"Goodnight," Trixie smiles tightly at her and fiddles with her room key. "Thanks for drivin' me. For givin' me a chance to be back in your life."

Katya is silent a moment, and then she's throwing her arms around Trixie and burying her nose in her chest. "You don't know how happy I am you came back. I wasn't sure you ever would."

"I'm sorry I left you hangin'," Trixie says in a rush, running a hand through Katya's wet hair. "But you said not to call you 'til I knew for sure."

"I know. Thanks for actually honoring that, you crazy bitch," Katya says. Trixie melts in her arms and drops her head onto Katya's. She holds her tight. "Goodnight, Trixie."

Katya pulls away and urges her down to kiss her cheek. Trixie says goodnight to her again and she watches her walk away, disappearing in an elevator. From the hallway window she watches her reappear outside and walk across the slick, shiny pavement to her car. Katya looks up before she gets in and waves. Trixie waves back and doesn't go into her room until Katya's red car is out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the car scene, though modified and edited to better reflect where the story actually went, was one of the earliest scenes i ever wrote for this, so... over a year old? some of us kill our darlings, some of us let them hibernate awhile.
> 
> thanks for reading!


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